Goodbye privacy, hello Alexa: here's to Amazon echo, the home robot who hears it all

We had Rory Carroll invite 'Alexa' aka the Echo into his home. There was helpful cooking assistance, endless facts and figures, an amusing misunderstanding - and concerns over what exactly Amazon does with all that interaction data

The experiment with having a robot in my home was going well - useful exchanges, mutual learning, some bonding - right up until the robot thought I told it to "fuck off". I hadn't. But the robot was convinced. It flashed its blue light and scolded me in a tone mixing hurt, disappointment and reprimand: "That's not very nice to say."

I could have laughed. Or shrugged. Or bristled, saying it had erred and should pay more attention before leaping to conclusions. I could have unplugged the thing.