Too Hot to Handle's Lana gets digital assistants all wrong

Gizmodo

"The show’s producers would have you believe that Lana is some AI created specially for Too Hot to Handle," says Victoria Song. "She has a distinctly robotic voice and is somewhat reminiscent of an Amazon Echo. She also says vaguely techy-sounding things about 'analyzing' contestants and calculating the 'probability' of which hotties are likely to form meaningful connections. Don’t break the rules too often, the show tells its contestants. Lana can and does see everything. Look, of course, this is typical reality show artifice. At this point, we’ve all interacted with some kind of digital assistant to know that currently, even the best can’t converse with humans in a natural way—let alone dispense advice, set up dates, and run social experiments on amorous himbos and bimbos. Of course, we all know in the back of our heads that Lana is a stand-in for Too Hot to Handle’s producers. The only reason you’re able to suspend your disbelief is because this 'tech' is based in truth, right? Our Amazon Echos, Google Nest Hubs, and smartphones are always listening, and at the other end are humans paid to listen to snippets of our conversations to improve mysterious algorithms. Yes, but also no. Netflix would have you believe that Lana is a plausible example of what’s possible. And even if you know better, a part of you buys into the idea of a future where you’re chummy with your sassy digital assistant. This is a classic case of science fiction informing our expectations of how future technology will work—and if past examples are any indication, that’s not how things generally turn out."