The Amazon Echo Dot, more formally known as Alexa, has been all the recent rage. It picks up on your voice when you call its name and tries to respond with an appropriate response. That might be putting music on or simply answering a trivia question. My family has recently purchased one, and there have been certain points where I feel like I’m living in the movie Smart House.

Smart House was a Disney Channel original movie about the Cooper family who wins a contest and moves into a futuristic house. The computer running the house, named Pat, takes care of everything including the cooking and cleaning.

However, soon Pat’s maternal instincts take over and she transforms into a real woman because she loves the family so much. She then ends up trapping the family in their own house because she believes the outside world is too dangerous. In the end, she gets transformed back into the computer after she is shown that she could never be the human mother the children need.

Now I’m not saying Alexa is going to turn into a motherly figure and try to smother my family with love, but there have been certain points where it feels almost unsettling having a computer listening to every conversation you have. I have even unplugged her from the wall because it’s gotten creepy.

It’s just the thought that she is listening to your every conversation and then selling information about you to different companies. It’s like the feeling you get when an add for a book you have just googled has popped up on your Facebook page.

Although Alexa doesn’t respond back to you unless you directly talk to her, her presence is always known. She even responds when a character on TV says her name. Her programming is intelligent, and I have gotten used to the way she “thinks” and know how to get the response I want out of her.

It’s just the thought a movie I had watched as a child is now becoming a reality in most homes around the world. Alexa can even be programmed to turn on the TV or the lights in your house. We are all one step closer to having our own “Pat” taking over our lives.

And while I enjoy certain aspects of Alexa such as asking her what the weather is or what was the news of the day it still makes me wonder if we rely too much on our technology. We have all become too trusting like the Cooper family and have our technology try to take over our lives.

Whatever the capacity, try not to become too reliant on an Alexa or Pat. It’s also good for them if they’re unplugged every once in a while.