VISIONS of the future so often get it wrong, being too optimistic or crushingly bleak. It is either the Jetsons (shiny happy people doing fun things) or Blade Runner (crime, grime, and raining constantly).

The reality lies somewhere in between, with life bumbling on with advances here and there, until something happens to pull everyone up short with a cry of “Whoa, Nelly! How did we get here?”

In this case, the alarm bell was not a “Whoa, Nelly!” but “Ha, ha, ha”. Some users of Amazon’s Alexa, the device that sits in your home and plays music, delivers news, and answers daft questions when you are drunk, have reported that the devices have been waking unprompted and emitting eerie laughter.

“Lying in bed about to fall asleep when Alexa lets out a very loud and creepy laugh,” wrote one Twitter user, adding with the understatement so often to be found on social media, “there’s a good chance I may get murdered tonight.”

Amazon put the occurences down to a glitch which it says is now fixed. Explaining what had happened, the firm said in a statement: “In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase, ‘Alexa, laugh’.”

Now this in itself opens a whole new can of digital worms. What were people saying to cause such misunderstandings? They must have been asking questions that ended in words which sounded like “laugh”. For example, “Alexa, shall I have a bath?” Or perhaps: “Alexa, I’ve forgotten to buy a mother’s day gift. Is it too late to order a fatted calf?” Or, and this is one for viewers in Scotland, “Alexa, am I right in thinking her next door is a wee nyaff?”

There is a serious point here, and I am indebted to Brian Feldman of New York Magazine for making it. As he points out, virtual assistants or “smart speakers”, being linked to the cloud, are not ultimately owned or controlled by you. Whatever you say to the device is transferred to Amazon, Apple, Google and the rest. You do not know what is done with the data. Similarly, the tech companies can send tweaks and updates remotely, without you even being aware. Control has shifted from you to them, and it is only going to get more so.

“Whenever you connect a Wi-Fi light bulb to your smart speaker,” writes Feldman, “or link another product to it, you are assembling a powerful programme that can control many different parts of your digital identity (and your home!) on a computer that you don’t own and can’t access. No wonder Alexa is laughing at you.”

We cannot say we were not warned. For once, the future was predicted accurately, in this case by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke in the 1968 movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. After all, what are Alexa, Siri and co but the grandchildren of creepy computer HAL 9000?

Naughty Hal, “foolproof and incapable of error”, started off as a delightfully quirky presence singing “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do”. A couple of hours later he was trying to seize control of the spaceship and had to be disconnected. Would you be willing to forego the benefits of the internet to be free of the devices you have?

Thought not. Every new gizmo turns humans into cats following a torch beam. Got to have that Alexa, got to have that dog-cam, nanny-cam, ability to switch on the heating to coincide with my return from holiday. Did you know that Alexa now comes with a “drop in” service? If you and another party (a parent, for example) agree, you can remotely drop in on them, ie switch on their device and hear what is going on. And if Auntie Mamie can drop in without your knowledge, who else might be listening?

There is evidence, too, that the devices are learning as the go along, much like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park taught themselves to use door handles. A colleague tells me he can be having a conversation at home with his nearest and dearest and Alexa, thinking she has been triggered into waking, will suddenly interrupt. So far, she has come up with non sequiturs but what if the machines start offering marriage advice, or telling us that yes, your backside really does look like the back of a bus in those jeans?

I have a love-hate relationship with tech. I was an early adopter of many an advance, from desktop publishing and smart phones to podcasts and Skype, but now find myself going the other way. These days, I’m convinced that even timer plugs are the devil’s work. Everything gets switched off when not in use, and you could not pay me enough to have an Alexa. The next step is probably renting a cabin in the woods. As long as it has Wi-Fi, I’ll be grand.