My phone is getting “smarter”
Well, not my phone, but the banking app running on it.
(Please note the quotation marks on the word “smarter”.)
See, the last time I logged into the app, I noticed a prominently displayed new section at the top-up of the landing page with the word predictions[1]. Curious as I am, I clicked on it.
It displayed a list of future expenses my banking app is “predicting”.
It was annoying right from the onset because it is a feature which is not only unrequested, but also felt intrusive. Besides, I hate when companies released opted-in features. I prefer opting-in myself after being nicely and politely informed about what I'm getting into.
Any way. There I was, looking at a list of “predictions”.
The first entry. A charge from my bank. WTF!? Are they charging me for their unsolicited prediction services? Wait. No. These are the current expenses on my credit card, issued by the same bank. Alright, not really impressed by your predictive power so far.
The second entry. My fancy coffee beans. Okay. I have a subscription service and this amount is automatically charged every month. A tad bit harder to predict (but not by much, because I've been subscribed for at least two years).
The third entry. My monthly salary. Hmm. Okay. This is getting uncomfortable now. Something like this is fairly predictable, but, why are you looking into this?
I didn't allow the app to predict I was going to ask such a question, and before it had the opportunity to surprise me with a pop-up showing the answer, I opted-out out.
Did you stop predicting because I opted-out, or are you still predicting and just not throwing your predictions in my face?
How can I get the previous question answered?
How can I trust the answer provided (assuming I get one from someone, or something)?
Besides, you got the third prediction completely wrong because my salary changed this month.
Footnotes:
- Als je in Nederland bent, is de kans groot dat je dit ook hebt gezien.