The Commercial Curmudgeon: Hey Google, Who's Making Who Here?
My original take on this commercial along the lines of another "ugh we are becoming more and more helpless and dependent on this stupid technology by the second." It worked better with the long (tv) version, which includes a woman almost killing herself in her own home because she "can't" find the light switch Thank Heavens For Google Now You Can Just Tell Google To Turn on the Lights you Used to Have to Turn On All By Yourself Like Your Ancient Ancestors Did and two jackasses in a car bleating "I'm not gonna do it" which I guess means it was never going to get done before the opportunity to ask Magic Listening Voice to do it.
Because this is a (mercifully) short version of that noxious waste dump of an ad, I'll go in another direction: Google, Alexa etc. are, in fact, the Fifth Column of Capitalism, welcomed into our homes disguised in the irresistable trappings of Convenience. Every time we bleat a request or command into one of these things we pretend are serving us, we are adding to our electronic ID being compiled by Corporate America. What we like to watch, what we eat, when we are home, when we are in our cars, the names and phone numbers of our friends, the web sites we visit, the medications we take- every. Single. Scrap. of information we share with our "Google Assistant" is being shared with the world.
Maybe most of us don't give a damn anymore- we're constantly taking selfies and lovingly editing them with our $1000 cameras before posting them everywhere, we're telling pollsters that we "don't care" if the government reads our emails or listens to our phone calls because "If I'm not doing anything wrong I've got nothing worry about." So if someone wants to learn all about me through my barked commands at the Alexa or Google device I've got sitting in my house, well, at least I don't have to dial or go online to get a pizza, and I'll never trip in the dark again so there's that, too.