California fires: smart speakers and emergency alerts

Mon Oct 16 16:01:40 UTC 2017

On Mon, 16 Oct 2017, Aaron C. de Bruyn wrote:
> Simple programming problem.
>
> Speaker: "There is a tornado warning in this area, would you like to hear more?"
>
> User: "How did you get my phone number?"
>
> Speaker: "You have opted out of tornado warnings"
>
> Fast forward to the next tornado and techno-darwinism will take effect.
>
> Alternatively you could have the speaker ramble on for 10-15 minutes
> about how the weather alerting system works and maybe the end-user
> will hang around long enough listening to the explanation...

Of course, on Amazon's Alexia, it will probably sound like this

Alexia: "There is an immediate evacuation due to wildfires in this area, 
would you like to order N95 facemasks with free shipping for Amazon Prime 
members?"