Most people assume that Google or Facebook will become self-aware and fulfill the dystopian prophecy of the Terminator series. Self-awareness, however, always remains a half century away. What appears achieveable in my lifetime is Orwell’s 1984 dystopia. Google and Facebook are playing the roles of Big Brother and the Thought Police nicely.

Not be to be left out of this party is Amazon, my dark horse in the race to take over our lives. While amazon.com began life selling books online, its vision has always been grander. However, I’m not sure even Jeff Bezos foresaw the rise of AWS. This New York Times article on the Ring doorbell contains an ominous quote:

In Ring, Amazon has something like a self-marketing machine: Amazon customers using Amazon cameras to watch Amazon contractors deliver Amazon packages. A video posted by Kathy Ouma of Middletown, Del., shows a happy deliveryman accepting snacks on her porch. An Amazon logo is plainly visible on the side of his truck. The Ring watermark hovers in the corner of the screen. The video, posted on Facebook, garnered more than 11 million views.

Amazon has silently infiltrated our lives. We even invite them in.