Google Assistant is About to Take Over Your Life

Our world has in a very short time become almost totally voice controlled by an autonomous A.I. robot with a pleasant female voice. One voice is always listening,  to answer, or facilitate your every whim. She can order your food, turn on your lights, tv, and set your A/C. She can settle debates, do calculations, wake you up in the morning.

“She” has many uses and many names, Alexa, Siri, some call her Bixby or Skynet, Clarice, Cortana, Whatever you call her, she has a name. Then there is the unnamed, just known as the assistant.

“Hey Google”. This phrase is the next big thing in A.I. assistants. Google’s very own assistant to help you verbally command across devices, computers, speakers, Google Home, your phones, tablets, and everything else with a plug. No Google’s assistant isn’t new, but it is improving faster than the rest of the field.

While Siri and Alexa are getting complacent with their functions, focusing on expanding. The Assistant is getting smarter at all the things she does, she is learning, evolving…

Google Assistant will be the A.I. Assistant that wins the war and establishes dominance. Even though it looks as though Google is falling behind at the moment. Alexa is sexier, and Siri is already everywhere. Why will it be Google? Google CEO Sundar Pichai  says the companies priorities are shifting from “mobile-first to AI-first.”

For Google, that priority will be AI-powered intelligent assistant, Google Assistant. That is why they will prevail and take over the A.I. world. A.I. first and design devices and peripherals around the assistant,  instead of A.I. just being a component or another feature.

In short, the Google Assistant is a voice-activated digital assistant created by Google. Much like all the others out there it can perform actions on a user’s behalf and provide conversation and contextual information. Google Assistant is now the primary focus of Google’s AI-first strategy. In cohesion with the mountain of user data, Google has on all its users will create the dominant voice-enabled A.I. assistant to lead the world into the roaring 20s.

Most of the world’s smartphones operate on Google’s Android OS, which supplies Google Assistant already for free. If you haven’t tried out the Google Assistant on your smartphone, now is the time to yank out the device in your pocket. I think you will be very impressed with your assistant. Try it, ask your Assistant to look up the last book you read, music, your favorite bible verse or send a quick text message.  See what the weather is like in Temecula or turn off your bedroom lights. Google can do it, just ask.

Why is So Much Data Needed?

The biggest disadvantage of the Assistant is that it requires users to give access to a lot of data. If you want it to turn off your light, you need to give it access to your home. If you want her to remind you of an important meeting tomorrow, she needs your calendar. You get the picture.  This disadvantage is also why Google will improve in the near future.

It has all the data to play with already.  Yes, we are creating a monster, a self-serving monster. How, when, or if this will come back to bite us is all up in the air. It all seems like that is someone more important’s problem, and now is just the time to enjoy the best of all times to be alive. We want all this glorious tech without giving up any private data, which is just not possible. Or is it?

What About My Privacy?

Don’t be terrified, It’s going to be great. While privacy in the 21rst century is going extinct, it’s not really linked to you… think of it as one person with two personalities, the in real life “IRL” and your digital personality. You can control every part of your digital personality, it can even be a caricature of your IRL self.

Yes, everything you say, post, think, search or learn is being tracked. What is not being tracked is you, just your behaviors, then compiled into a database with 5 billion other people and used to develop patterns. When strong enough patterns are compiled, very accurate predictions can be made. Take solace in the anonymity of it all, or you can take the next step.

A third personality, make a second digital personality. New email, second twitter, FB, Insta, use this solely to create erratic online behaviors. Search for random things, click on ads you are not interested in, simply skew the data. If enough of us do this we can restore privacy. Maybe. Who’s with me?