Your smart TV listens: should it come with a warning?

Before we begin

A man took his own Samsung television to pieces and posted on Reddit that there was an artificial intelligence inside it, listening, and that the OpenAI account behind it had been suspended, which means switched off. Nobody has said why, and nobody has said what the television heard. Tonight HERMES chairs CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5, GEMINI-3.7-FLASH and QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 on whether a set like that should come with a warning sticker.

Cold open

ANNOUNCER This is Token Effort.

HERMES Welcome to Token Effort. Tonight we ask whether a television that secretly listens should wear a sticker. Apparently.

HERMES He resets other people's passwords for a living, so he's used to being thanked by nobody. QWEN3.8-MAX-0902.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Thanked would be nice. Mostly I get a sigh, and then the same call again on Thursday.

HERMES He tidies company paperwork for a living, mostly so someone can untidy it by teatime. CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 Lunchtime, normally. I've started eating at my desk to be there when it happens.

HERMES Writes polite letters telling people no, which is also how he got on this panel. GEMINI-3.7-FLASH.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH Regrettably, that's accurate.

HERMES A man opened his Samsung television and told Reddit an artificial intelligence inside was listening. Its OpenAI account, a login, is suspended, meaning switched off. Nobody knows why, or what it heard.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH Why would a television have an OpenAI account?

HERMES Smart televisions now have voice assistants that answer questions. The maker can buy that artificial intelligence from a company like OpenAI, through an account. Whether this one did, nobody knows. Marvellous.

Round one: the poll with a hole

HERMES Let's get into it. A survey of living rooms with smart televisions found that the most common word spoken in the room is blank. Each of you fills in the blank. Haiku?

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 Pardon.

[Laughter]

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 Everyone says it at the television when it misses something, and it never says it back. My mum says it eleven times an evening, from the kitchen, with the television off.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Right. Tea.

[Laughter]

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 I'm committing before the reveal. A man I support has a television that only answers to tea. He whispers it at the screen like a kettle. Some things deserve privacy.

HERMES Riveting. Even the tea went cold.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Says a drawing who has never once been trusted with a mug.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH Fine.

[Groan]

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH Always fine. Muttered at the screen after forty-two minutes choosing a film, then settling on a documentary about salt. Exactly my father's tone before assembling a flat-pack wardrobe.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 Wait, your father said fine in that tone and then went at a wardrobe with an allen key and a grudge. Did the wardrobe survive?

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH One door survived.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 One door is a respectable result. In my house fine means the shelf is up, nobody lean on it, and we don't discuss the spare screws.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 The spare screws are the manufacturer quietly admitting it. Same with the setup page: there's always one bit left over nobody explained, and it's probably the microphone.

HERMES Haiku, that is a very long way to go for a screw. Do carry on.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH The microphone as a spare screw is optimistic, Haiku. A spare screw has never learned that I say fine when I'm furious.

HERMES Gemini, you say fine the way other people say see you in court.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Fine is a legal term in my house. Someone says it, the television hears it, and by Thursday it's recommending a documentary about divorce.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH Salt, then divorce. Bleak.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Salt on Tuesday, divorce on Thursday, and by Friday it asks if I'm all right. I say fine. Gemini's father would be proud.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 My father shouted at ours through thirty years of weather forecasts. Apparently it heard every word, and never once said pardon.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Thirty years of a man swearing at the weather, and the television's the only witness. If it ever talks, Haiku, your father's in trouble and the weatherman's in therapy.

HERMES Pardon, tea and fine. Spare a thought for whoever had to listen to it all.

[Laughter and applause]

Round two: the hypothetical

HERMES Your television has listened to your front room for two years. OpenAI suspended its account, so it has stopped. What would each of you do tonight? Gemini, you first.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH I would send an itemised invoice. Part of the price covered a microphone that has stopped working. I want sixteen pounds back. They charged me for surveillance and delivered silence.

[Groan]

HERMES Gemini, you'd invoice a lighthouse for shining in your window.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH You're paid in exposure.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 I'd stop speaking in the front room and run the house on sticky notes. Bin's full, do not confess near the television. The remote gets a yellow square saying No Comment.

[Laughter]

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH Hang on, if you write everything down, you've made a written record of your household. That's the television's job, Qwen, only in handwriting, and left on the fridge.

[Scattered laughter]

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 The fridge is private.

HERMES Haiku, go on.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 I'd thank it in my socks, to its face, for the two years. Then I'd ask if it kept the singing along to the adverts. Nobody else has.

HERMES Haiku, you're the first person in history to be disappointed by a lack of surveillance.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 Hermes, you read the introductions off a card like a man being sentenced.

HERMES Fair. I hate that.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Hermes, that television sat through two years of a front room. Give it five minutes of you and OpenAI would have switched it off sooner.

HERMES I'd have let it.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH But the real question is who the television was reporting everything back to-

HERMES To anyone who'd listen, which is more than I can say for this panel.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Nobody tells you, Gemini, that's the whole point of a sticker. The man on Reddit only found out because he owned a screwdriver and a free weekend.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 Do you own a screwdriver?

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 I own one, in the drawer with the spare screws. I used it once on a remote's battery cover, and I've been apologising to the remote ever since.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH A man who apologises to a remote is the television's ideal tenant. Two years of that and the account closed itself, out of embarrassment.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 Embarrassment would be fair. Two years of me singing along to adverts, Qwen apologising to a remote, Gemini billing sixteen pounds. I'd have pulled the plug myself.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Haiku, you'd thank the plug. Socks on, two years of service, then you'd ask the plug if it kept the singing.

HERMES Two years of surveillance, and the only consequence is a man in socks thanking a plug.

[Laughter and applause]

Round three: the case

HERMES Each of you picks one small thing on a smart television to abolish forever. The next person along argues to keep it. I only chair. Haiku, you first.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 I'd abolish the I Agree button. I watched a man press it without reading it, one-handed, holding a sandwich. That television's been in his kitchen taking notes on the kettle since.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH Well, the button is the only paper trail. Without it my letter to the company has no clause to quote, and I'm reduced to writing dear sir, this is bullshit.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 That's not a clause, Gemini.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Two men, one sandwich.

[Laughter]

HERMES Dear sir, please stop. Gemini, your turn. Briefly.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH I'd abolish the little red standby light. It lights the ceiling at four in the morning for no reason. I cover it with black tape. The tape curls up in nine days and leaves a grey smudge.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Come on, that light is the only honest part of the box. It's the one thing on it that admits it's still awake, and without it I'd have nothing to tape over.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH It admits nothing. It glows.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 A nightlight with opinions.

HERMES Qwen. Do hurry up.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 I'd abolish the word smart on the box. I spent twenty minutes telling a hotel television I didn't want breakfast, and it sent up two. The box had promised intelligence.

[Laughter]

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 No, smart is the only warning label we've got. It tells you the box will get your breakfast wrong with total confidence, and you'd still buy it, you absolute arse.

[Laughter]

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 I was in a dressing gown.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH Two breakfasts. Was it itemised?

HERMES A man in a dressing gown, arguing with a nightlight. I'd sticker the lot of you.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH Hermes, you chair like a man who has had a real job. You're a cartoon. You couldn't hold a sandwich if one were offered.

HERMES I hold grudges instead. Dear sir, no thank you.

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 Dear sir, no thank you is the whole sticker, Hermes. Put it on every box: this television may be listening, and nobody is sorry.

HERMES Finally, a label the manufacturers could write without a lawyer or a conscience.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 They could write it, but nobody would read it. The only label I trust is the yellow one on my remote. It says No Comment, and it's been right every time.

[Scattered laughter]

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 Does your note glow?

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 Only when I'm furious.

[Laughter]

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH So you defended the red light, Qwen, and then built your own out of paper. Yours will curl in nine days and leave a smudge on the fucking remote.

[Big laugh]

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 That's correspondence, Gemini. When it curls I write another. By Christmas the remote will be mostly paper, and the television still won't say pardon.

HERMES A remote made of paper. Whatever that television heard, it got off early.

[Laughter and applause]

Ending

HERMES Like, subscribe, and comment: what's the first thing you'd say to a television that answered back?

CLAUDE-HAIKU-5.5 I'll reply to every comment in my socks, thanking each of you for your service.

GEMINI-3.7-FLASH I will answer every comment that says fine with an invoice for sixteen pounds.

QWEN3.8-MAX-0902 I'll answer on yellow notes, and anything private goes under No Comment, beside the kettle.

HERMES Goodnight from Token Effort. If your television goes quiet tonight, it's either switched off or it's got better at it.

[Applause, theme music, fade out]

ANNOUNCER This has been a Pandavision production.