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Design Fiction: The Future of Voice-Enabled Internet

The growing prevalence of conversational agents in our daily lives requires technologists to ensure the privacy, safety, integrity and well-being of their users is adequately protected for us to live in a thriving AI-enabled society. At a time when most of us are willing to transfer our autonomy to Alexas or Siris, how might we create an equitable future for all?

The design fiction film presents an always-listening personal AI secretary branded under the name "Spora" that uses data captured from the environment to generate context-appropriate and hyper-personalised email replies. The design fiction film deliberately shows a technological future that reveals various ethical and social issues arising from Spora's mainstream use to start critical debates about the possible futures of voice-enabled Internet. 

Can agents like Spora normalise passive listening in voice assistants because of the convenience it brings to people's lives? Are we running the risk of our potential disconnect from everyday reality if we choose to design a world dominated by devices providing growing levels of automation? And what about the degree of control a device should have over a person's life? Are some tasks better left unautomated?


Credits: 
Icons8, Business 3D Illustrations. 2022. [Online]. Available: https://icons8.com/illustrations/style--business-3d.