Something the New iPhones CAN’T DO: ’Stop Listening to Me!’

With all of the stories these days about how our new phones can listen in on our conversations at any time, even recording our every word, it might seem that we live inside of some kind of Orwellian technocracy, and are continually being spied upon by an advanced electronic surveillance grid.

Since my own phone is an old iPhone 4, it’s not quite smart enough to employ all of the newest eavesdropping technology, but I have a friend who’s phone is very new, and the other day I got a sample of some of the amazing abilities of these newest ‘personal’ phones.

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”Seriously?”

I was sitting with my friend and her son, and they were discussing a family dinner of some sort, and she had decided not to go. Her son was frustrated with her about it, and exclaimed; ”C’mon... seriously? Don’t you think you should at least tell them you’re not coming?”

Before she could answer, a crackling voice came from her nearby phone, and she picked it up.

To all of our amazement, the phone then played back her son’s voice: ”Don’t you think you should at least tell them you’re not coming?”

We were shocked. Her son thought back, and realized that when he’d said ’seriously’ that the smart-ish phone had heard Siri, which had somehow activated the instant playback of the phone’s ongoing recording.

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The Conversation

It gets more interesting. Holding the phone close and speaking loudly into it, the encounter with artificial intelligence went to a new level as my friend then commanded:

”STOP LISTENING TO ME!”

Before any of us could think about how an iPhone might react to this, the device absolutely reacted. With a neat, crisp British accent, her phone-- having clearly heard her request-- answered most politely; ”I’m sorry, I can’t do that!”

Welcome to the brave new world, or the brave new AI’s world, featuring a simulated intelligence robot that’s a million and-a-half times smarter than any human, a computer eavesdropping interface that politely tells it’s user to get bent if that user complains about the blatant and rude invasion of privacy.

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Hanging Out With Siri Soon

I’ve had my old iPhone 4 since 2010-- back around the beginnings of the AI takeover-- and it has monitored me as well as it could, but the old toy is beginning to glitch and fail, and a new one seems to be about to come into my life.

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When I get my new device, maybe I’ll tell Siri that there is liable to be a body buried out in that weedy area next to the garden in back; Siri will alert the cops, the cops will dig it up for me, find nothing, and then I can plant carrots there in the spring.

I’ll think of some way that Siri and I can work together here in this technocratic matrix, I’m sure of it.

all pictures above thanks to Pixabay free images

And this is why you use the button if you talk to your devices (in a way that they're expected to respond to, I talk to mine all the time but don't expect a response) XD

I'm thinking that I'll be having to learn all of this soon enough, my old phone is acting funny these days, but it still acts like a phone, so I keep it.

They're (currently) easy enough to turn off. Hopefully it stays that way XD

Have you youtubed "don't say this to Siri" or Alexa or whoever it is now?

No but I will- this just happened the other day, I hadn't thought much about it before.

That is so creepy. Boycott this shit

It was creepy, totally unexpected.

My brain just told me to mention the part about how kids learn catch phrases. Pay attention to these words. What if the technology existed when a certain group said, "Man" constantly? "Man, got any weed?" These words trigger the secret recording... and then you are given better offers for weed the next time you login and see advertisements. I'm just inventing this as I go along.

That's probably the tech they use to catch the terrists, and it is definitely used for gathering data for advertising through key words, but we had just been talking about weed right before that, so it was like having the pigs walk in the door when we heard that voice.

Nothing worse than a cop knock heart attack rush.

"When I get my new device, maybe I’ll tell Siri that there is liable to be a body buried out in that weedy area next to the garden in back; Siri will alert the cops, the cops will dig it up for me, find nothing, and then I can plant carrots there in the spring."

Hahahaha! That is true outside the box thinking! Props!

Thanks!

Great technology @therealpau. i like your post and following.

Very interesting topic, deference thinking about technology. Thanks a lot for sharing the post.

nice post. shared :)

What a great idea, get the cops to dig up your bugs bunny patch for the year. Think you're onto something here.