It is a slow and boring day on board the big, flying ship Megatron 500. Alex, Theo and Lola are sitting around a table and talking to each other, when Lola has a brilliant idea. “Let’s have a dance party to lift our mood.” Theo immediately agrees and ask Lala, their intelligent agent, to play his favorite song. Slightly confused, Lola asks, “Well, how does it know your favorite song? Normally, you have to say which song you want to hear…” Theo explains that their intelligent agent memorizes everything that he likes and dislikes, “so it knows a lot about me, all the small and big things that I share.”
“That’s scary”, Lola says, “You know nothing about the conversational agent but it knows a lot of personal things about you.”
“That’s true.” Theo explains, “You just need to be sure about what you can share with a conversational agent. In my mind, it’s like with a huge book. The intelligent agent writes all the information that you share with it, down in an enormous book it keeps about you. Sadly, the eraser for your information doesn’t work too well. So all the things you tell the intelligent agent will often stay in the book forever.”
“Hmm”, Lola is looking at Lala, “so I really have to think about what I want to share with the intelligent agent because I cannot properly erase my information? Who else can read this book, is it just my intelligent agent Lala or can other people read it too?”
“Well it depends. Normally, only your intelligent agent is supposed to read your book. But there might be someone who wants to read your book too and has access to it without you knowing.” says Theo. “Imagine a thief with a flashlight sneaking into a huge library where all the books about people stand. The thief can now read every book about many different people. The books show him all the information the people shared with the intelligent agent. If a thief or anyone else comes into this library and reads your book, your information is not private anymore. That is why you need to think about what you want to put in the book.”
“Ok, got it. Now let’s put the table and chairs aside and start this dance party” says Lola, pushing the chairs to the side of the ship while Theo and Alex grab the table and follow her example. “Hey Lala, please put the disco lights on.” Alex requests.
Laughing heavily, the kids start to dance and sing to their favorite songs, and even Bello, their robot dog, wags his tail to the sound of the music.
