We thought we’d adopt AI at home. Instead, seems to be adopting us
Are you eying a humanoid robot?
BRENT McCONNELL
We once made the mistake of standing at the front of the crowd at the 2023 Munich Oktoberfest when the morning gates opened. Thousands of people surged in behind us, pushing toward the beer tents. Those of us up front got carried along, nearly crushed and literally swept off our feet. I fought to protect my wife as I struggled to breathe myself. The current rush of AI into our lives feels a little like that moment – and the chances to choose where, when and how much of it we let in keep shrinking. In our own homes, that can feel crushing, even suffocating.
I have always been a fast adopter of new technology, and I was using the internet before it left the Pentagon. But “adopting” emerging technology used to be a choice I made. With AI, it feels like AI is adopting us, with little say in where and when it impacts our lives. It is emerging in surprising places, including our homes.
Most of us wouldn’t call our home an “AI home.” We don’t own a robot, don’t really use a chatbot and artificial intelligence still feels distant – maybe uncomfortable. We tell ourselves we’ll pick and choose when to let it in. We think we still have plenty of time to decide.
But opting out entirely is getting harder, and may soon be nearly impossible without giving up conveniences and services from utility companies, banks, employers and medical providers. A friend’s recent job interview was conducted entirely by an AI bot. It wasn’t his choice, he didn’t know until the interview started and he didn’t get the job.
Our feelings about AI are mixed right now, and probably should be. I am both excited and afraid of where AI is headed in general, and thinking about AI in my home makes it highly personal. There is appeal in a house that anticipates what I need. There’s also something uneasy about a house that knows that much about me.
Some of us may be eyeing that $10,000 humanoid housekeeper everyone’s talking about. Our grandkids may already be actively interacting with an AI “friend” on Character AI. Pew Research found 64 percent of U.S. teens use AI chatbots, and more than a quarter use one daily.
AI in the home isn’t just chatbots and humanoid robots, though. An Ecobee thermostat learns our temperature preferences. Ring and Eufy doorbells recognize faces, packages and cars. Our iPhones screen calls and flag suspicious texts. For now, most home technology runs in separate silos – the doorbell, the thermostat, the alarm. But a single dashboard, maybe from Google Home or Amazon Alexa, is coming to tie it all together. That part is appealing. What comes after it is worth more caution.
The next wave is “agentic” AI – systems that don’t just alert us but act on our behalf: adjusting the thermostat, rerouting power, deciding when to call a repair service or 911, all without us in the loop. Part of us wants exactly that – fewer chores, fewer things to remember. But part of us should be uneasy too.
A system might arm our home and lock the smart deadbolt at 10 p.m. sharp, which sounds incredibly efficient. But an autonomous machine operates on rigid logic, completely blind to the messy, unpredictable context of a real home. With no human in the loop, it can cause more problems than it solves – calling 911 on a family member returning home late, or shutting down the AC because we deviated from our schedule. By misinterpreting normal human behavior as a security anomaly, we risk letting automation introduce a strange, rigid friction into our everyday lives. How much autonomy do we actually want autonomous systems to have?
The decisions on where AI shows up in our lives are increasingly being made by those seeking to mine our lives for profit. That fact is uncomfortable, not just for its influence on me, but for its intrusion into the process of raising and protecting my family. The financial focus on “clicks” and “engagement” is a strong pull, one that seeks to excite and please us no matter where that takes us. The pessimistic side of me fears where that pull to excite humans will take us; the optimistic side sees real promise in AI-assisted quality of life. Given human nature as we know it, we should prepare for the former and hope for the latter.
Given time to watch AI evolve, we could make individual choices about where we want it in our lives and homes, and grow comfortable with its progress at our own pace. That was the case with the internet. It is not the case with AI. Its rapidly advancing capabilities are startling, even to those building it. While we wait to decide, the decisions are largely being made for us. Like that festival crowd in Munich, the wave is pushing us forward whether we want it to or not. The challenge now is keeping our footing before the threshold of our own front door is crossed entirely.
McConnell, a resident of Cape Haze, is a retired military officer and former Pentagon lead for weapons technology security policy. He served as Associate Director for International Cybersecurity Operations and directly supported Ukrainian wartime cyber ops in Kyiv. A frequent international speaker, he specializes in export controls, cybersecurity and AI with a focus on helping organizations navigate emerging technology risks.
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