For 72 hours, artist Lauren McCarthy could be your personal digital assistant
“Most people who own one–or any other smart home speaker–probably don’t spend a lot of time questioning the fact that this always-listening device records data about them and then ferrets it away in a server, where it is used in ways they may never know about. But would we question that arrangement if Alexa were a real person, rather than a device? That’s the idea the artist and UCLA assistant professor Lauren McCarthy is putting to the test. This week, McCarthy launched a project called Lauren in which the Los Angeles-based artist embodies a eponymous smart home assistant. For three days, she acts as the brains behind a willing volunteer’s smart home, doing everything from turning on lights to giving advice to just chatting, like a living, breathing Alexa, Cortana, or Siri.”— Fast Company’s Katharine Schwab