Stop Listening!

I have been training my computer to recognize my voice so it will take voice commands. I have been trying this because I need to transcribe some oral histories from tapes, and I was told that I could repeat the words from the tape, and my computer would type everything I said. It is supposed to be easier than typing. I took the tutorial twice, and  I learned some commands that you give to the computer such as “Start listening”  “Undo”  “Select line” “Stop listening.” The first time I tried it after I had taken the tutorial, it didn’t work well at all. About every third word was wrong, but the theory is if you change it, the next time it hears that word, it will know how to type it right. It takes all kinds of commands such as “Press enter three times” or “Right click twice.”  The second time I  went through the tutorial, it got me! It was typing up all the words, even large words that I don’t know the meaning of.” (I was reading a manual.) I was impressed! I felt like the people of Star Trek, “Computer, chart the course back to Earth.”

But although my computer had been learning new tricks, It has also been doing some crazy things lately. I wrote two long emails to my friend Sue, and they disappeared–both of them, not in a draft file or sent file or trash or anywhere. It was eerie. Then today when I was talking to my daughter Lynsie on the phone, I noticed the icon at the top with the microphone was awake and “listening” to me. The screen blinked, changed, programs closed and left me with a blank screen, and the little microphone window was asking me something like, “Is 60 calories enough?” I broke away from the phone for a second to say, “Stop Listening!”  and it did, or at least it said it was “sleeping,” but then it woke up again, thinking I was talking to it instead of Lynsie. So now I am wondering if I made some kind of sound or said something to my husband, or maybe myself as I was typing that email to Sue. Maybe the computer was listening without me realizing it.

Anyway, while I was still talking  with Lynsie, the nosey computer was once again listening. I told it again, “Stop Listening!” with a little more authority–I’ve found that sometimes it is hard of hearing. Lynsie became very confused as to whether I wanted her to stop listening or stop talking while I chased someone out of the room. I explained I was only having an argument with the computer. I finally clicked on the x near the microphone icon and exited it manually. I hadn’t realized that I needed to do that. It is supposed to sleep until you tell it to start listening, but now I know it can’t be trusted. It eavesdrops and even takes over! It reminds me of that scripture that says someting like “when they receive a little authority, as they suppose, they begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. . .” Well there you have a perfect example–all the while pretending to be responding to commands. So I put it into a hard sleep, and for now, at least, Computer seems to be minding its own business!