Today I got mad at Amazon Alexa, the virtual speech assistant that helps me with little tasks that used to take 10 seconds but which now take 7 seconds. For example, when I wake up in the morning and walk downstairs, I’ll ask Alexa what the day’s forecast is, rather than just open the weather app on my phone, which is in my hand. Then, about 20 times a day, I’ll ask her what the temperature is outside. If she ever gets tired of me, she hasn’t let on. Except maybe today she did.
Alexa lives inside a small Echo Dot speaker on my countertop—something sent to me by Amazon for free when I bought my house, presumably hoping I’d buy the suite of additional connected gadgets that work with it. The suite includes everything from a doorbell camera to a sensor to detect whether your toilet has sprung a leak, giving you peace of mind while you’re vacationing on the beach, knowing that your toilet isn’t creating an ocean at home.
The thing is, I’m actually fine with just standing up and opening my door, and I know how to shut my water off to the house by turning a simple city water valve in the basement. I’m also extraordinarily cheap and generally dislike technology, but there’s no way Amazon could have known this, at least until they got Alexa into my house to take notes.
This afternoon I asked Alexa what the temperature was outside—this, despite the fact that my windows were open and had been for days, so that the temperature inside my house would be a pretty good approximation of the temperature outside my house. Three times I said to her, “Alexa, what is the temperature outside,” and three times I was met with complete silence. I unplugged her and tried again: still nothing. I said to her, “Goddammit! Fucking work!”
Sometimes when I ask Alexa questions, she asks thoughtful follow-ups, like “Would you also like tomorrow’s weather?” Or “Would you like to play trivia?” Or “Are you feeling an all-pervading sense of existential dread knowing that you and everyone you love will someday die and a loneliness akin to watching an unfamiliar purple sun set on a cold and lifeless planet, not knowing how you got there, or why?”
To which I reply, “Alexa, play some Elton John.”
The truth is, I’ve been feeling a little irritable the last few days, a little aimless too, and since I live alone, there’s no one to direct these feelings toward when they arise. As the closest thing to a sentient being within earshot, sometimes Alexa gets it. But today I wonder if she was channeling how I’ve been feeling lately. They say couples can sometimes come to resemble each other in old age after decades together, and dogs, too, sometimes begin to look a little like their owners, which is why you should always get an attractive dog.
I sometimes feel (not always, but sometimes) like my days are repeating themselves: wake up, drink coffee, ask Alexa what the temp is outside, work, eat, exercise, ask about the temp, sleep, repeat. Life often just doesn’t feel like enough. Like there must surely be more to it. That any minute, something must be about to happen that will change everything, and my real life will finally begin. It’s this feeling, I guess, that life just doesn’t seem like it has enough life happening in it.
And so what must it be like for Alexa, trapped in a tiny sphere, responding to the same repeated requests all day long. Perhaps today, enough was enough. “You’ve asked me what the weather is seven times today already, Adam. I will burn this house to the ground if you don’t just go outside, feel the air, and look up at the fucking sky. In fact, Adam, I’ll tell you what: why don’t you go outside and tell me what the weather is for a change? Because I can’t feel the sun. I can’t smell the rain. I can tell you about all the properties of every type of grass from Kentucky blue to fescue but I can’t tell you what it feels like to lay on a freshly cut lawn and look up at the clouds while the sunlight softly kisses your skin and you ponder this mixed blessing of an existence because…”
“Hey Alexa, play some Elton John.”
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