Corporations are just as vulnerable to the complexity of trust as people are. Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon all must broker trust through their services, their public figures, and the things they create. As I said last week:

A good relationship is built on trust. I don’t have to remind you of all the trust you put in Gmail to send your correspondence, iCloud to secure your precious photos, or Amazon to take care of your purchases. The problem, though, is that our trustworthy relationships are breeding dependence. We’re becoming extremely reliant in a very unhealthy, dangerous way.

Thoughts on our relationship with technology

What I didn’t touch on is how smart speakers are complicating things. They are built with all the qualities of an active listener and are building trust in the same way that a psychologist, a pastor, or a teacher would build trust – through an open ear. That’s literally all that smart speakers are right now… an open ear that occasionally helps out. Nearly a quarter of all US households have already fallen for this ploy of trust and installed a smart speaker.