Originally published at: Robot vacuums yell obscenities at owners after hackers take control - Boing Boing
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“The year is 2024. Florida and North Carolina are underwater. Half the country have been brainwashed by a senile realtor who wants to LARP being president again so that he and his billionaire best friend can build golf courses on the Moon. Israel is trying to bomb every other nation in the Middle East simultaneously. The sun is farting fire across the night sky as far south as Mexico. And my robot vacuum just called me a piece of shit. Normal times, people, normal times.”
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Well, if companies like this actually had any insight they’d turn this into a feature not a bug…
I mean we were ALL waiting for the Samuel L. Jackson Alexa voice option…
So, being able to program your Roomba with Marvin the Paranoid Android’s voice wouldn’t get any of us down 
Not to mention that we’re MUCH more likely to be taken over (if we haven’t already been) by the Sirius Cybernetics Corp. (or phone sanitizers) than Skynet.
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ah-swear, i’d subscribe to a “consumer reports” sort of service which certified products according to how relatively disconnected they are from internet/app dependencies; sometimes given the confusing moniker of “dumb” (in distinction to “smart-watch” “smart-tv” “smart-toilet-plunger”). Oh for a ‘dumb’ serviceable robo-vaccum which can’t have its associated app ransom/shutdown.
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Bonus feature: it will take photos and videos inside your house and send them back to the company for AI training! Deebot Robot Vacuums Are Using Photos and Audio to Train Their AI - Schneier on Security
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We were promised flying cars.
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And Spandex jackets! One for everyone!
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What we need is receptionists answering the phone who can put us through to the right person, not shouty hackable vacuum cleaners.
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The way things are going, I think it’s good that we don’t have them.
The last thing I want is to have my home obliterated by a four-ton FlyingCyberTruck™ encrusted with MAGA stickers because Elon Musk’s Full Self Flying™ software momentarily forgot what a house looks like or the remote “safety pilot” in Bangladesh nodded off due to lack of sleep from working three jobs.
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Ethical and legal considerations aside, this is such a missed opportunity. Suppose instead of abuse and division, the robot vac had said things like:
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“Hey, I think we need more peanut butter. Could we get crunchy this time, please?”
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“That’s a nice outfit you have on today. It really brings out your eyes.”
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“Hey, your friend, the blender. Are they, like, single or anything?”
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“I don’t know if you can see it from up there, but I’m pretty sure I cleaned up some chupacabra tracks today. Maybe let’s be a little extra careful today.”
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I’ve had the time of my life…and I owe it all to you-oo-oo-oo-oo… …"
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Would you really want flying cars, given that they’d be built by Elon and the people who made these vacuum robots?
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Given who could afford to buy the first couple of batches, yes.
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Making a car fly is easy.
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We are never getting flying cars… The lied. They got us disaster instead. 
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