Amazon debuts its awful, creepy robot snitch
Meet Astro. Good, now be extremely terrified of Astro
Aux Features Amazon
Amazon announced a bunch of Alexa-enabled panopticon surveillance home tech earlier this week, and it sucked so damn bad. Every single bit of it. All sucky. Suck suck suck.
Upcoming products include a security camera/schoolteacher for your children’s bedroom, “smarter” Alexa systems, some unholy Disney voice assistant alliance, a diet monitor, and perhaps suckiest of all, Astro—a creepy, invasive, ever-watchful iPad with a cup holder welded to its ass.
Marketed as a cutesy home companion that can dance and wink at you, its main purpose is undeniably to “proactively patrol your home, investigate activity, and send you notifications when it detects something unusual,” which are Amazon’s words, not ours. It will use all manner of motion sensors, recorded data, and facial recognition tech to do this, the latter of which has come under increasing fire for algorithmic racial biases, among a host of other issues. It marks one of the most dramatic steps yet in Amazon’s quest to become the sole “caretaker” of your home—and, by extension, all of your precious, precious data.
It’s also a terrible product. How do we know this? Well, Motherboard managed to publish leaked documents mere hours after Astro’s unveiling that detail in-house skepticism and downright loathing of the new robot, citing poor design and shoddy AI. “Astro is terrible and will almost certainly throw itself down a flight of stairs if presented the opportunity,” one anonymous source is quoted as saying, adding the $1000 (yeah, $1000) item is “at best, absurdist nonsense and marketing and, at worst, potentially dangerous for anyone who’d actually rely on it for accessibility purposes.”
You can pre-order the thing now, if you’re so inclined. Please don’t.
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23 Comments
At first glance I thought the Astro was just an iPad duct taped to a Roomba, but that would actually be more useful since it would keep the floor clean.
Honestly, for its basic functionalities, cleaning floors should’ve been a no-brainer starter point.A Roomba that keeps an eye on things isn’t a strictly bad idea at all.
They’d get sued by Tom Haverford, though.
A robot that will call the cops on you and fall down the stairs? Why did they not name it Karen?
Looking forward to the inevitable lawsuits from everyone who’s gonna break something tripping over this bargain-basement Wall-E.
Well, of course, the terms of service will absolutely require submitting complaints to arbitration. You did read the EULA that you accepted, right?
Fuck this product, and fuck Amazon. If you work at Amazon in any management capacity, fuck you.
You sound like a employee who got fired for not doing your job.
And you’re the sucker who’s fallen for capitalist propaganda. I’ve never worked for Amazon and never would.
More like currently doesn’t have a job. Not a legal one that pays anything anyway. People like that complain the loudest about capitalists. Easy to feel like you’re right when you don’t have any experience to tell you otherwise.
That fuckin’ thing is at the perfect kicking height and I’m gonna need an opportunity to kick the ever-loving SHIT out of one at some point.
Robber: Alright, here’s the plan. Astro has a five hour battery life, so at exactly 3 am it’ll need to recharge. That’s when we make our move…
Obligatory
I mean, the underlying assertion here (that many, many people aren’t still wrapped up in delusional, self-important paranoia) isn’t true. Wish it was! Isn’t!
Not even the 60’s. I remember growing up in the 90’s and hearing people make the joke about your phone getting wiretapped.
I intend to make it watch me pee. Over and over.
Screw you hippies. I think it looks pretty cool. The price is a bit much tho.
My dog has major aggression issues with the vacuum cleaner, for reasons he finds perfectly reasonable. This thing bopping about when I’m not around?Bye bye Astro.
Seems light on functionality (to say the least) but I think we all know that’ll change quickly. In one short product cycle, after which it can narc on your dog, clean your floor, fetch a beer, and be a travelling/hands-free Facetime surrogate (ie, a suite of usable functions), it will undoubtedly find an eager market.
It would be very hard for me not to drop kick the little bastard into the nearest wall. Not only because of my hatred of Amazon, but also because I fucking hate when anything’s recording me and I myself did not press the record button. Knowing Amazon though they’d program it to call the police for robot abuse like this:
“…$1000 (yeah, $1000)“ so about the cost of a new iPhone?
I’m not sure why all the sometimes-violent reactions. This is simply another misfire from another massive corporation completely out of touch with it’s potential customers. Remember the virtual lock key that would allow an Amazon delivery person into your house to leave your groceries in the kitchen, presumably not snagging a few pieces of jerky or watering down your booze?It’s a horrible solution in search of a non-existent problem, and the only people who would embrace it are completely out of touch with the technology and deserve it. “More money than sense” is the adage my grandfather used to say.What I find more bizarre is the notion this could make it through multiple executive meetings with nobody raising their hand and “errr, guys….”. That usually indicates a toxic work environment where you never question.
I’m sorry… but if anyone actually places one of these in their home.. well…. your a bloody fracking idiot!