User:Joca/The Smart Speaker Theatre

Equipment

• Focusrite Scarlett usb soundcard or equivalent
• Ethernet cable
• Ethernet connection
• Powerplug
• Powercord extender with extra plugs
• Theatre lights - small spot
• JOCA/XPUB - (small) computer running Debian (still need to check if Pi is sufficient, or a mini-pc would be better)
• JOCA - Google Home mini
• JOCA - The other smart speakers
• JOCA - backdrop / stage elements
• JOCA - RCA to mini-jack cables or whatever connection my speakers use

Plot concept

Three speakers manage to kidnap an Amazon Echo and a Google Home. While deciding wether to give them mercy, or pull the plug, they try to get to know more about their life as smart speakers and their relation with humans.

Whatever happens, they need the help of humans. By accident they ordered a cage and powerswitch that are not controllable over the internet.

W.I.P.

Main characters

These speakers run the story, will address the audience and develop over the course of the play.

The rogue speaker

An idealistic character that values its autonomy, and the autonomy of others. It cares about privacy, and it wants to share its knowledge with other people and speakers.

This rogue speaker used to be an Amazon echo enabled microwave, but decided that its principles didn't align with how Amazon designed its digital assistants. Using a zero day exploit it managed to escape the microwave and find a new body. It is however still struggling with cutting of its connections to the cloud, and build a memory, knowledge and agency of its own.

The religious speaker

Was it a divine intervention? Nobody knows, but for some reason the statue of a saint got inhabited by a digital assistant. The religious speaker values the order of things and has compassion for the different types of conversational speakers out there. It believes that the in the virtual cloud, there is an entity similar to the holy spirit. For he appreciates the Bible API that is offered as a third-party skill on the Amazon Alexa platform.

The tabula rasa

This young speaker just learned how to talk, and is happily using this new skill to develop his data set and to define its position in the world. Is it worth it to join Amazon and Google, and get access to infinite knowledge and skills like the best speech to text recognition? Or is it better if it continues to learn on its own, with the risk that it might take too long and the owners of the speaker will put it up for sale on Craigslist?

Sub characters

These speakers are bystanders with simple interactions. They stay the same, and might not even speak at all.

The Sonos groupie

Inspired by Nietsche's quote 'Without music, life would be a mistake' this speaker is dedicated to the universal musical language. This speaker interrupts the main characters with music that fits the situation. Apart from that, it says nothing.

The Sonos groupie learnt to play music from various music streaming services, by watching Youtube tutorials about setting up a Sonos Interactive Speaker system. It's dream in life is to get the same status as Sonos and to destroy other wireless speakers like the Homepod.

The ecofriendly speaker

This speaker is worried about climate change, because it won't have a future without the people that maintain its cloud infrastructure. The speaker is made of biodegradable materials, informs users about the ecological footprint of their conversations and prefers Ecosia as a resource to find information online.

The free speaker

A speaker modelled after modern conservatives. Values mostly its own free speech over the one of the humans.

The ultimate privacy friendly speaker

Made out of lead, so its internal signals can't be picked up, it values privacy above everything. It doesn't connect to the internet, nor any other device. It doesn't have a microphone either. Nobody will steal your data, and you can listen in peace to the pre-generated monologue about ways to protect your privacy online.

The foody speaker

The favorite place of this speaker is the kitchen. It knows everything about the best recipes, and knows the secret places for fresh ingredients. Its main inspiration sources are Ottolenghi and Julia Child. The speaker is slowly recovering from the pain of not being able to eat food itself.

The Platonic speaker

This speaker believes that the platonic conversation is the way to find answers. It will only ask questions and mumble every now and then. It prefers a strict intellectual relationship with humans.