Now that Christmas is over and the people who think Santa watches them have let their guard down, allow me to call your attention to a new source of anxiety: your air fryer is watching you.

Don’t have an air fryer? That’s okay. Your audio speakers are doing the same job. Don’t have either one? Some other household object is ready to fill in. Have you checked the salt shaker lately?

Britain’s oddly named consumer organization, Which?, reports that “data collection [on the products they tested] often went well beyond what was necessary for the functionality of the product – suggesting data could, in some cases, be being shared with third parties for marketing purposes.”

You’re shocked, I know. Me? I’m hard to shock, but the phrase “be being” kind of threw me.

Actually, the air fryer did too, but I guess that’s what you want for a spy–an appliance on one would suspect. 

Which? tested three air fryers, which “wanted permission to record audio on the user’s phone, for no specified reason.” Some asked for the new owner’s gender and date of birth when they set up an account, although Hawley’s Small and Unscientific Survey reports that age and gender don’t often affect cooking times. That’s based on a sample of one: me. I haven’t changed gender but I have gotten older and cooking times have held steady.

The questions aren’t optional. Unless, of course, you don’t bother to set up an account. I don’t have an air fryer myself, so I’m making a wild guess when I say you can probably use the beast without an account. Plug it into the wall. Turn on the heat. Fry air.

Semi-relevant photo: a camellia, blooming away in December. It doesn’t care who you are, how old you are, or even if you have a gender.

Smart watches, on the other hand, aren’t smart unless you agree to the small print. At least one, Huawei’s, wants permissions Which? considers risky, allowing it to bump around inside your phone, record audio, access files, and see what other apps you’ve installed in case it gets lonely and wants to commune with a few like-minded apps. 

It also wants to know your exact location. 

None of that, the company swears, is used for marketing or advertising. And it’s all justified, although how is anyone’s guess. 

Smart speakers are all over the map in terms of what they want to know and I got bored with the details, so if you need to know what your smart speaker’s up to, either assume it’s no good or go read the article. 

*

Which? also conducted a survey about the worst holiday presents people were given. The most notable entries were a gravesite and a toilet seat. Probably not to the same recipient or from the same giver, but that’s a guess.

On the other hand . . . 

. . . not all technology wants to record our every electronic move. Some wants to help us be better people (as defined by its developers), and in pursuit of that goal Apple and never mind which other firms have created gizmos that can rewrite or summarize our emails before we send them. Presumably with our permission, but don’t count on that being true forever. The goal is to make us sound friendlier and more professional than in fact we are, but AI’s new to the job, so there’ve been a few glitches.

I do love a good glitch.

An email from a woman breaking up with her boyfriend was summarized as, “No longer in a relationship; wants belongings from the apartment.” 

Whatever the original said, we can all agree the improved version’s much friendlier.

The text accompanying a photo of a kid working on a car with his father came out as, “Photo shared of child reaching into car hood; air filter changed.” A series of five emails were summed up as, “Russia launches missile and drone attack; shop early for Black Friday Deals.” And a message from Amazon said,  “Package was delivered tomorrow.”

AI has also been introduced to Ring door cameras. Since it doesn’t have human-generated text to improve, it–

Words fail me, so let’s cut to the example. One sent a message saying, “Dog took boot. Kitten cheese escaped the house.” 

*

I don’t think we can blame either AI or a bot for this, but what the hell, it’s vaguely tech related, so I’ll drop it in here: a Swedish government minister’s emails–or possibly her staff’s emails–got loose in the world and informed one and all that she’s terrified of bananas. So much so that her aides sweep rooms before she enters to make sure no bananas can ambush her.

What happens when AI cross-pollinates with religion?

A church in Switzerland (full disclosure: that’s not in Britain; neither is Sweden) installed an AI version of Jesus that, unlike the original, can talk to people in 100 different languages. The church was short on space, so they set it up in the confessional, beaming in an image of Jesus as imagined by I have no idea who–my bet is someone northern European and white. Before people used it they were warned not to disclose personal information and had to confirm that, yes, they understood it was an avatar.

Two-thirds of the users said it was a spiritual experience. The other third? One said it was “trite, repetitive, and exuding a wisdom reminiscent of calendar cliches.”

Criticism divided along sectarian lines. Catholics tended to be offended by the use of the confessional and Protestants by the use of imagery. Given the glitches AI’s prone to, the organizers may have had a worry or three about what Mr. J. would say, but disappointingly, he doesn’t seem to have said anything odd. No confabulated Bible quotes. No escaped cheeses. 

No, I’m not going to excavate the joke that’s just under the surface of that last sentence. We’ll move on.

Low-tech possibilities

A group called Forest Research has trained a dog to sniff out a disease, Phytophthora ramorum, that’s responsible for thousands of hectares of British trees being felled. It’s spread by rain, and even after 14 years of Conservative government Britain is still rich in rain.

Forest Research hopes to train dogs to spot other pests as well. As for prototype dog–Dog 1.0– he probably thinks he’s just out in the woods having a good time.