Today people buy always-on surveillance devices, AKA “smart speakers” and gleefully install them into their own homes. Like cellphones, for these devices to work, they have to be constantly monitoring you even when you’re not using them. Yes, according to both the Google Home and Amazon Alexa privacy policies, these devices only retain data for conversations that contain their activation keyword, which can then be reviewed and deleted by the user at any time.

For now.

In the long term, “always recording” has so much value that it seems inevitable. Manufacturers won’t even need to push for this. Consumers will demand it. Smart speakers are early versions of what will eventually become home personal AI assistants. They can already schedule appointments and make online purchases for you. Eventually they’ll evolve to become your own personal Jarvis, able to talk and have complete conversations with you. To do that, they’ll need to have persistent memory. Nobody’s going to be satisfied with an AI that can’t remember what was said 30 seconds ago.

That means they’ll eventually transition to always on and everywhere. Tech giants have made no secret of this. Look at cross-device functionality for Microsoft Cortana. The plan is to have the same AI…not just the “same software” but the same AI and everything it knows about you available everywhere you go. Have a PC? Cortana is there. Have a phone? Cortana’s there too. In time, she’ll be available in your car, and on your smart fridge and your smart glasses and every other device in your life. Make an appointment on your phone, and later that day the display on your car’s dashboard will pop up with a reminder. Eventually that same functionality will be available whether or not you even own the hardware she’s running on. For example, imagine walking past a mall billboard and seeing your own personal AI assistant on it, who advises you that the shop you’re walking past has that new gadget you mentioned wanting the other day. Your data will be in the cloud. All the billboard operator has to do is make the hardware available, and it won’t be any more complicated for the software than accessing both your PC and your smartphone.

You think consumers won’t allow that? You think they’ll be sufficiently concerned about their privacy that they’ll even take the time to check an “opt out” box, let alone fight it? Not a chance. Remember little Billy being trained to accept 24/7 surveillance? When the children of today grow up, they’re not going to care who has access to their personal data, because they’ll have had an entire lifetime of being taught that it’s normal for everyone to know everything about them.

Privacy is dead.