Mulpuru Supriya

2001200

PGDM-D

Technology and Innovation Management

Alexa: A Pandora’s Box of Risks

The widespread usage of smart speakers in homes has allowed AI voice assistants to
pervade millions of people's lives. Individuals have gotten increasingly popular in adopting
technology improvements that make their lives easier since the industrial revolution. With such
powerful technology come new problems and threats in terms of user privacy and data. With the
introduction of the Amazon Echo and Echo dot smart speakers, Amazon is an example of a
company that has pushed out into the AI sphere. The goal for the company was to employ a
computerized speech assistant called 'Alexa' to play music, set reminders, get weather reports,
control lighting, home appliances, and a variety of other things via voice command. Quite the
opposite has happened, contrary to Amazon's purpose of creating a device that provides ease and
comfort in its customers' daily lives. The majority of the issues are around Alexa's inability to
reply to very sophisticated language, data privacy and security, hacker vulnerability, and risks
associated with voice access. Amazon should create an AI system that breaks down society
expectations and permits a fundamental shift to reshape their attitude in order to avoid the
significant risk associated with AI. This framework must be able to accommodate both
complexity and size while still being oriented on shared value. Amazon's aims and execution
should be to concentrate their efforts on the decisions and outcomes that are most important to
Amazon and their customers.

The article Creating Shared Value examines the link between societal and economic
advancement and how it might benefit a business while also improving economic and social
situations. Shared value establishes and strengthens the link between businesses and the societal
values they generate. The notion creates a value cycle in which gains in one area lead to benefits
in other areas. It provides new needs, efficiency, and differentiation that businesses require in
order to meet consumer demands. Products must be designed to meet society's demands, which
include better health, better housing, improved nutrition, ageing assistance, and greater financial
stability. In areas such as utilizing digital intelligence, demand for products and services to
address these societal needs is fast increasing. Individuals' lives are improved in a variety of
ways by digital intelligence, which makes ordinary chores easier to manage for people of all
ages. When customers embrace products and services that provide societal benefits, a whole new
set of opportunities for innovation opens up. The problem for Amazon is that while Alexa may
add value to society, it is still in the early stages of digital development. Alexa has done
considerably more harm than good, instead of promoting a better way of life for society as it was
intended. Consumer data collection was expected to improve digital elements by collecting
browser histories, conversations, and phone calls, according to Amazon. But here the question
arises whether the data collected by Amazon is safe or not? What does Amazon does do to
ensure the security of its devices and customers? And finally who is responsible for safeguarding
the Alexa environment – Amazon or the end user? Because collection of our personal data or
recording the voice of the end users may lead to vulnerability to hackers, voice access risks, and
other attacks like detecting sounds outside the range of human hearing which leads Alexa to
interpret sounds differently than a human would and this techniques might be attractive to
hackers.

Amazon generated a vast amount of data that was stored in Amazon’s data centers, which
some observers believed was a valuable asset for Amazon, however the social responsibilities of
custodianship for sensitive personal data were not well-defined. With the projected development
of the capability to detect a speaker’s accent/first language, ethnic origin, gender, age, Amazon
might soon have access to new data that could be valuable to governments. Such surveillance
might aid in criminal prosecution, but it also fundamentally alters the notion of privacy. Amazon
has a delicate walk to master. On one side, it must provide its customers a guarantee of privacy
and on the other side for the government it must comply with laws for request of data. At the end
of the day, customers will hold Amazon responsible for the use, misuse and sharing of Alexa
data as the potential for unjust invasion of privacy is immense. However, Alexa’s progress also
created new challenges for Amazon, its Alexa enabled customers, and society at large. Amazon
needed to identify and address these challenges in order to encourage continued consumer
acceptance and preclude detrimental government or regulatory action.