Amazon states that, within five to ten years, every household will own a robot. Recently Amazon presented their first household robot: Astro. It has many functionalities, such as checking on pets or people, controlling home security, checking for ovens or stoves that are left on when leaving the house, and much more. Obviously, having a robot fully equipped with cameras and microphones running around you all day might lead to some privacy concerns.
Astro will see and hear everything, and it will more than likely use an internet connection to process all this data. If we assume that Amazon is trustworthy and will not use this data for any other purposes (can we assume that?), it is still possible for people with other intentions to intercept this data. Amazon counters these threats by stating that Astro can be programmed to stay out of certain rooms or to disable cameras and microphones. The latter will prevent any functionality altogether.
In addition to the privacy concerns, there is the question of whether this household robot adds a lot of value, coming in at a price of 999USD. I can see the use for elderly who are at risk of falling in their houses, of course, but there are much simpler and most importantly cheaper solutions for this. Therefore, I would have to say that at this point, Astro does not take enough daily tasks out of hand to be worth the price tag.
However, this might just be Amazon’s plan. Astro is not supposed to become the standard in household robotics. It is supposed to be a signal towards competition, how far ahead Amazon is, and towards customers, how much of an innovative company they are. So when the day is there that a household robot is almost a basic need, people will look at the latest Amazon products first.
Do you believe that in five to ten years, most households will have a robot?
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58727057
Very informative! I agree that robots will sweep into the mainstream lifestyle of humans. However, data gathering in ways that we are unaware of has been happening for longer than we know. So many of us have Alexas at home, for example. When I go over to a friend’s house, there is no ‘permission’ taken to get my voice and what I say recorded or analysed. Similarly, even street cameras and ones out in the public are still technically ‘invading’ on our right to privacy because there is no consent.
That is not to say that all devices such as Alexa and robots are necessarily a bad thing, Alexa has eased the automation system in homes. Singapore, which is known for the most surveyed country in the world, has released two robots into the public arena to keep an eye on social behaviours that stray from covid restrictions and distancing. Such initiatives are for either ease of use or for the public good. I am still, however, a little wary of robots being conducive to our privacy at home. They are a great source of entertainment or for simply cleaning the house, like the Rumba, or even assisting babies and the elderly. But the sheer amount of data it can gather without any consent is enormous and at times very risky. Its like pervading into the personal and private which personally does not sit well with me. However, like I said in the first line, it will nevertheless become a part of our lives and we will seamlessly adapt to co-existing and co-living with robots.
Hi Niek,
I found your content quite informative and interested. When I was reading the article, I had already privacy concerns regarding the product. I guess Amazon’s current brand image and reputation might not be enough to be very successful and profitable with this product. However, as you mentioned at the end, they can be first mover in the market and improve their innovative solutions to meet customer’s requirements.
I guess through improvements in the AI systems Amazon will manage to get over the privacy and data related concerns. For example, they can build a system that manually household can insert house outlay that it is developed on the external application easily. Internal data kept internally in the machine would bring some trust for the customers. Well-written and quite interesting topic!