Would you like to ride a horse?

My wife and I were sunning on a beach in Antigua. No clouds in the sky. The water was calm. The only sound was the crushing of little waves. It was the first day of our honeymoon. At some point a man walks up to us with a brochure and says, “Would you like to ride a horse?“ Flashback to the day before as we were in a shuttle on the road leaving from the airport. There was a woman on a horse on the side of the road. A man held a rope guiding the horse. It was scared of the cars speeding by. “This is nothing like the commercials of sexy people on horses racing on the beach,” I remember thinking. So, no horse ride was written for me in my future for that trip. Flashback over. I declined the offer. The gentleman said okay. The next day we see each other at the same beach. We exchange cordial greetings. No mention of a horse ride.

I think of that guy whenever I set a pizza timer on Alexa and then it reminds me I bought a shirt three years ago. It’s curious if I want another one. This is not like my friend on the beach.. He knew I didn’t want anything, but Alexa does not care. It will keep asking.

Now that we are in a post ChatGPT world and Apple is partnering with them we are about to have an entirely new way of interacting with devices. They are no longer going to say we bought a shirt three years ago, but have a more in depth approach to selling us a shirt, because they will know us. That is as much as we let them know about us.

Thinking about privacy I want you to be prepared for this change. I want you to think about how you interact with ChatGPT, FacebookGPT, AppleGPT, or whatever. They are all the same thing. Be mindful that these things are not our friend. They are powered by people at a big table with a big screen on a wall who are excited to have your money. So, whenever you feed these things be sure to be as vague as possible. The more the people at the big conference room on the top floor know about you the more persuasive and effective they will be at selling you a shirt you do not need. Unless you need a shirt. I mean we all need shirts. The point I want to make is that I want to buy a shirt because I need one rather than am sold to buy something I already have.

By the way, I threw away my Alexa. My Amazon app noticed I wasn’t using it and was curious if I needed another one.