Feels Like Amazon's Turning Homes Into A Dystopian Nightmare

Almost every human being on the planet makes use of Amazon services in some way, shape, or form. Whether it be ordering Freddie Kruger claw backscratchers with free two-day Prime shipping or watching military branches getting embarrassed on Twitch, Amazon is a global capitalist empire in ways that’d make Rockefeller a rock-hard fella. Given how insidious Amazon is and how they’re in every household, you’d think that more people would be creeped out by this inherent invasion of private life, but at least they’re not putting actual surveillance robots in our homes … right? 

Wrong. Turns out, Amazon seems to be doing exactly that, with their new product lineup of home defense and nanny robots that are as hellishly scary as any Terminator film dreams it could be. The first of which is a flying security drone with the appropriate dystopian name “The Always Home Cam.”

This drone is replete with a plethora of features designed to help stop a potential break-in, like cameras that record live footage of the criminals, which then gets sent to the homeowners via smartphone and can even alert the authorities too. Amazon officials say that it does not report anything while not in motion, but who are you going to trust: your gut instinct or a company hell-bent on selling your personal data. 

And it’s not like security cameras, and drones haven’t been hacked/exposed before, leading to even more suspicions on whether this technology is safe or not (hint: it’s not). On top of that, security experts aren’t quite convinced that this tech will stay private, such as Silkie Carlos from Big Brother Watch, who called it Amazon’s “most chilling” product yet. 

The product itself will cost around $250, which means you’re basically paying half the price of a Playstation 5 to not retain any and all rights to privacy when the AI robot revolution rolls around, but your mileage may vary. We’re just saying, any product that comes from the dudes who brought you the infamous Amazon warehouse “cry closet” probably should be shipped with a mini red flag for you to mount on it. 

Next on our list of Orwellian nightmare fuel comes something a bit friendlier looking in the form of Amazon’s first home robot called Astro. This cute robot can be remote-controlled, set to an autonomous path, has cameras and sensors to record and send footage of its environments, and even alert homeowners and authorities to any unusual/dangerous activity.

But … looks can be deceiving. Despite Amazon saying that Astro can be told not to go into certain areas or that you will have the ability to turn off cameras and microphones, the idea of a little soulless husk of machinery can patrol your home at all hours, be controlled remotely, and beam information back to Amazon or hackers is kind of bone-chilling.

On top of that, the robot fulfills a role that is largely already handled by good old-fashioned human beings, who don’t have to be connected 24/7 to Amazon’s live services to function. The robot itself is priced at a whopping $1,500 and is expected to become available for purchase soon. But we can’t help but think that only the most deranged of upper-class homeowners could possibly want something like this trekking around in their house. Not to mention that similar robots in the past have failed pretty spectacularly.

It’s not entirely clear who the demographic here is. In either case, we, for one, welcome our new oligarchic silicon valley overlords (please don’t have us whacked, Bezos).

Top Image: Amazon