Man Rigs Google Home Device To Fire Gun
A guy took a Google Home digital assistant and modified it in such a way that it could fire a gun, and it proves a really scary point about AI.
By DAVID on May 31, 2018
This story turns into a moral/artificial intelligence dilemma. A guy, Alexander Reben, decided to take his Google home assistant and rig it up so it could fire a gun. Something to note, the gun he used was a pellet gun and it could barely harm an apple. But the demonstration is just the same, and it proves a scary point.
This doesn’t just apply to the Google home – that’s just what he had on-hand. This would work with all of them – Amazon Echo, probably Siri, any of the digital assistant devices. He didn’t do this to be evil, he did it to show that it’s easy, and that there are some things to consider moving into the future. He’s some sort of electrical engineer we’re guessing, because he built the device with “spare parts” in his “studio.” He assembled the parts together, mounted a gun, and was able to activate the gun with a command. That command, “activate gun,” was all the Google Assistant needed. When he says that phrase, the assistant fires the gun. Here’s a demo video he posted:
He says that the same device he built could be used to turn on any device. A back massager, a lamp, coffee maker, anything. He says “Part of the message for me includes the unintended consequences of technology and the futility of considering every use case.” He was trying to prove a point, that we should spend a little more time working on these artificial intelligence devices. Really, this was an attention grabber project, we think, to direct attention towards ethical use of artificial intelligence. The military is already using it for their drones. Could it be used to target enemies too? See some more on the story here.
