Alexa, have you changed your hair?

People tend to anthropomorphize their virtual assistants, assigning them personalities and physical features such as age, facial expressions and hairstyles according to research from Canada's University of Waterloo. But giving these qualities to virtual assistants could cause people to reveal more personal information to the companies that own them than they otherwise would, says the study. "People are anthropomorphizing these conversation agents which could result in them revealing information to the companies behind these agents that they otherwise wouldn't," says Edward Lank, a professor in Waterloo's David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. "These agents are data gathering tools that… [Continue Reading]