Is The Amazon Astro As Creepy As It Looks?

By now, you have probably heard of Astro. Announced this week, Amazon’s robot companion is currently the first thing you see when you go to their website. It has also been all over the tech blogosphere, earning surprisingly positive coverage, with headlines like this one on CNET: “Amazon Astro could be the robot we’ve been waiting for.” When coverage has been negative, it has primarily questioned the usefulness of the device: WIRED writes, “Amazon’s Astro Is a Robot Without a Cause.” Only Gizmodo had the gall to speak truth to power, summing up the Amazon Astro as such: “What If Wall-E but Evil.”

If you are somehow unfamiliar with Astro, here is “his” introductory video:

A few thoughts: To start, this is a great ad. I could totally relate to the main character lady in the video, expressing skepticism being won over the first time Astro delivered her a beer. Like Amazon’s initial Echo products, initial reluctance can be overcome by the simple tasks made easier. Major privacy issues aside, who doesn’t love when Alexa tells you the weather outside or who won last night’s game? Even if these aren’t revolutionary capabilities, you do get used to them. Seven years after the Echos were first announced to public uncertainty, they are now commonplace in American homes.

That seems to be the point of Astro as well. The robot’s functions are rather limited. It can do anything an Echo can, plus of course move around. (This is how it can deliver beers, though it does not seem that this model is able to physically remove said beers from the mini fridge). In moving around, Astro maps the floor plan of your house. Oh, and it has a camera, in theory so you can “check in” from an app on your phone when you are out. Given all the news stories over the past year of people hijacking Zoom calls, this seems less than ideal. But at some point you may just have to give up and acknowledge you are at the mercy of Big Tech. In other words, you have to Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Surveillance. If someone wants to spy on you—be it a multinational government, the U.S. government, or Russian pranksters—they already have the means to do it. Adorable little Astro isn’t going to change that one way or the other.

I do not endorse this resigned conclusion per se, but it is certainly the one that Amazon wants you to reach. The main purpose of the Amazon Astro is to get American consumers comfortable with voluntarily putting a roving camera in their homes. (This is also the purpose of the Ring flying drone camera, which has yet to take off, perhaps because it is about a million times more sinister-looking than Astro). Amazon can then easily gather more information on consumer behavior, then use that information to sell you more things. This is the charitable interpretation of why a large retail company would want you to introduce mobile spyware into your living quarters. Other, more dubious reasons invoke references to Skynet and “The Terminator” franchise.

So, should you get the Amazon Astro? Probably not, but for the record I do not think this is anything near as creepy as Moxie, the “Social Support” Robot. I do wish it was a bit more impressive. Amazon is obviously leaning into the Jetsons connection—their robot resembles Rosie and is actually named Astro! Then, how come it doesn’t vacuum? Rosie was always vacuuming! Robotic vacuums are genuinely useful. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at it), Amazon promises (or threatens) that, “This is our first robot, not our last robot.” I’ll let you decide for yourself how you feel about that.