The BBQ and the Errant Butler

Marek Pawlowski shares a tale of a dinner party taken hostage by a boorish Alexa hell-bent on selling the guests music.

Amid the flashy marketing campaigns and rapid technological
advances surrounding virtual assistants like Alexa,
Cortana and Siri, few end users seem willing to question
how the motivation of their creators is likely to affect
the overall experience. Amazon has done much to make
Alexa smart, cheap and useful. However, it has done
so in service of an over-arching purpose: retailing.
Of course, Google, Microsoft and Apple have ulterior
motives for their own assistants, but it should come
as no surprise that Alexa is easily sidetracked by
her desire to sell you things.

MEX | User Story: the BBQ and the Errant Butler