Artificial Intelegence is and has become the feelings police..... And the more it is pushed the more controlling it will become. The world has and with every passing day brings the reality of the story/book/movie/ 1984 ....................... drill sgt.

Shit, I still use the old classic round Honeywell thermostat in my house.

Honestly it does serve him right.

My wife got the kids Alexa for Christmas one year. Within an hour, after reading about it, I told the wife to send it back. Had to tell the kids I’d get them something else. How can anyone just hand over their privacy like that?

I've limited my AI motivated technology to wifi enabled lightbulbs. Having an active listening devices like Alexa, Echo, Google, Cortana all tying together your home lights, door locks, fans, alarms, A/C, etc...you have to be willfully ignorant to not see the progression of big company intruding into your life.

The overbearing, constant surveillance, the recording of your language, activities and actions will eventually come to sci-fi level of pre-crime precautionary actions by these companies who will promote their products through convenance and safety.

quote:

Originally posted by drill sgt:
Artificial Intelegence is and has become the feelings police..... And the more it is pushed the more controlling it will become. The world has and with every passing day brings the reality of the story/book/movie/ 1984 ....................... drill sgt.

While in general I agree with the latter part of your post, just to clarify, this has nothing to do with AI. This is about people giving up control of their home to a company/companies that can arbitrarily take control from them, on a whim, leaving them with very little recourse and no means to control their "things".

The vast majority of this "smart home" stuff doesn't use AI, it's straight automation controls...

quote:

The University of Maryland graduate said he is now considering using Raspberry Pi devices, rather than those connected to Amazon.

Hah! Good luck buying them!

For those that don't follow this market, the official RPi creator/manufacturer/distributor, Adafruit, have shown "out of stock" of their RPi3 and RPi4 models for a couple of years now. Resellers buy up entire shipments at, $35/unit or so, bundle them with a few cheap resistors, a breadboard, and a power supply in a "starter kit," and sell them on Amazon for $150-200. These don't last either, selling out in a matter of days.

At the "official" price point, RPi's are a fantastic bargain, at 4 or 5 times that, not so much. I own 3, and would probably have half a dozen more if I could buy them at MSRP. They are certainly capable of performing as a home control server, I think there is a distro that is plug'n'play for this application, but you'd still have to add and integrate compatible sensors, cameras, microcontrollers, etc. Fortunately, the array of available products has grown to where this is no longer rocket surgery, but there is still a long learning curve, if only to learn the jargon.

It continues to amaze me that hardware that would have cost well over $1,000,000 when I first started studying computer technology back in 1967 can now be had for $5-10 (if the greedy resellers don't get to it first).

Back on the original topic, it is not outside the bounds of possibility that either the home automation system was compromised by some unrelated third party, or that the delivery driver's phone or music player suffered the same fate. Or maybe he was listening to rap where profanity and "racial slurs" are commonplace. Amazon is way off base here, I can't wait for the day when AI is added to this sort of knee jerk reaction to an accusation. Any day now.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
The second most interesting thing in the article is the guy saying he might get rid of the Amazon automation stuff. Might?

Yeah: "Might?" If I'd had the bad sense to have Alexa automation in the first place it would've been gone before they had a chance to restore my account.

quote:

Originally posted by Veeper:
I still don’t understand the appeal. Turning lights and music on and off is a stupid reason to have these things.

I would agree with the music, but, I'm not a big music listener, anymore, anyway, so there's that. But, lights? Plenty of reasons. E.g.: When we're away from the home for an extended time the lighting automation can make it look like we're home. When it starts getting dark out we can turn on all the lights in the room in one go, rather than walking around and turning them on one-by-one. Then, when it's time to watch a movie, we can dim them all to a preset level ideal for us, again: All in one go. When going to bed at night we can walk to the bedroom in a lighted house, then turn out all the lights from bed.

That's just a few of the reasons for lighting automation off the top of my head.

But, I'd never trust anything from Google or Amazon for this stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
I couldn't care less even if you were saying vile racist shit in your own house. It's your house for chrissakes.

Precisely. Amazon sold them a product to perform certain functions. Their interest in the product's operation ends there. Unless it's being used in the furtherance of an illegal activity, they have no business messing with it. And, even then, only after a court order.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Shit, I still use the old classic round Honeywell thermostat in my house.

I just upgraded my t-stat to a $40 Honeywell a few weeks back, very nice, and she’s not a spying info sharing little shit.

quote:

Originally posted by Blackmore:
My home will remain as stupid as possible for as long as possible.

My home is stupid as fuck . Same with my phone, I have a stupid phone, not a smart one.

Nothing in our house is operable by smartphone, Alexa, nor do we have any Ring type of devices, etc. Nothing is auto operable by wi fi or smartphone, including lights, thermostat, music, kitchen appliances, pool controls, etc. The only things wi fi are our TVs, some laptops, and my desktop, which has no camera or mic.

I wish that I'd have trouble believing that the driver was that thin-skinned. Grow the Hell up!

This is my shocked face.

I'm capable of turning my own damn lights on and off .The only thing Wi-Fi enabled around here is the garage door opener and my wife is the only one that downloaded the app .

quote:

Originally posted by Some Shot:
I wish that I'd have trouble believing that the driver was that thin-skinned. Grow the Hell up!

This is my shocked face.

Who did the driver report this to ? Did I miss something ?

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
Who did the driver report this to ? Did I miss something ?

Ummm, to Amazon? His employer?

I'm assuming the driver was an Amazon driver and not UPS or USPS.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
Who did the driver report this to ? Did I miss something ?

Ummm, to Amazon? His employer?

I'm assuming the driver was an Amazon driver and not UPS or USPS.

I'm just guessing he's an actual Amazon employee, that's how it went "up the ladder" as fast as it did. Just a guess.

Regardless, it seems there's little mechanism within Amazon to protect the end users, which is insane.

Yes , I missed the part about him being an Amazon employee .

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
Yes , I missed the part about him being an Amazon employee .

I'm not sure it was actually explicitly stated. As I said, I'm just assuming. So I'm not sure you missed anything in fact.

This is funny. While I don't disagree with the privacy sentiments stated, there is little or no functional difference between these automation devices, your smart phones, and late model cars. They all have the ability to listen, track your location and respond to your various activities whether you are aware of it or not. Just food for thought.

I have a bunch of stuff automated, things like outside lights, water heater, garage door, and some water sensors, keep in mind thst this is automation, not what mist people consider smart.

It centers around a Hubitat elevation hub, a secondary wifi network, and a z-wave mesh. None of it is connected to to the web. This manages stuff So I don’t have to.

As an example, when my xmas lights were up, they came on at dusk and stayed on until midnight. Then the xmas lights went out and my regular front outside lighting came on and stayed on until dawn. My regular lighting in the back of the house came on at dusk and went off at dawn, as always.

This is a set it and forget it setup that runs locally on my network. It is not even connected to the internet let alone running off of someone else’s cloud service.

You bought the hardware but are not paying for the service. It has been pointed out here many times; if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product.

Minimize dependencies. Home automation shouldn't fail when something external fails. Not having credit cards at your bank makes it easier to fire one of them. Not using the e-mail from your internet provider (verizon, comcast, etc) makes it easier to switch providers. Internet service shouldn't be required to read e-books you own.

Guilty AND punished until proven innocent. Nice.