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> For the concerns you have, it'd be far better to maintain a socially-optimal profile with data collection, to show what a normal/happy/healthy/productive member of society you are. Surely you understand that many people don't want to live in a world where you have to maintain a false persona 24/7 to avoid being flagged for some unknown perceived infraction. Many people already curate a social media presence for that reason, but are you really okay with extending that to every last facet of your life? Should you have to worry if some future employer or your insurance company might possibly think that you're buying too much alcohol, are too supportive of the wrong political party, are too gay, opinionated, not social enough, not happy enough, dating too often, eating out to much, etc.? It doesn't make any sense to try to change your behavior to try to look like a model citizen at all times because you can't know what the criteria is you'll be judged by, how accurate the dossiers on you are, or how they're being used to impact your life. This is a broken, dystopian, dangerous system and telling people to give up even trying to limit the amount of data they expose and simply accept it is not going to help change anything. |
Yes, but they have no choice today.
> Many people already curate a social media presence for that reason, but are you really okay with extending that to every last facet of your life?
Nobody is forcing you to buy an Alexa. If you want an always-on digital assistant, then yes, you're probably ok with curation of the words you say while at home.
> Should you have to worry if some future employer or your insurance company might possibly think that you're buying too much alcohol, are too supportive of the wrong political party, are too gay, opinionated, not social enough, not happy enough, dating too often, eating out to much, etc.?
Yes, everyone has to worry about this in today's environment. It would be silly not to worry about this with what we know about large scale data collection.
> It doesn't make any sense to try to change your behavior to try to look like a model citizen at all times because you can't know what the criteria is you'll be judged by, how accurate the dossiers on you are, or how they're being used to impact your life.
No model is perfect, but I believe there is safety in numbers. You can't know what you'll be judged by, but the more people who share your views and actions, the less likely you are to attract problems.
> This is a broken, dystopian, dangerous system and telling people to give up even trying to limit the amount of data they expose and simply accept it is not going to help change anything.
I'm not telling people to give up trying to limit the amount of data they expose. I'm saying that everyone should develop their own threat model and see if an always-on listening device at home is appropriate for their needs.
I do not see any future where opting out of Alexa or Google Assistant would mitigate any of the fears you have. I do see a future where knowing how to audit your own security and how to use more than one identity will mitigate your fears.