Virtual Personal Assistants – such as Bixby, Alexa (Amazon), Siri (Apple) and Cortana (Microsoft) – are at the cutting edge of marketable artificial intelligence (AI). AI refers to using technological systems to perform tasks that people usually would.
Voice assistants are recording everything said by their owners, some of which – including sex and medical records – are being heard by humans for quality control.
Of all the fictional virtual assistants we know from pop culture, few stand up to the original and perhaps most famous: the HAL 9000 from the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
We should probably be thankful for that. After all, Alexa may shut your lights off, but she won’t turn against you and wreak havoc on your life. Or will she?