The very idea of the first camera from Google causes people to freak out.

The tiny Clips camera, which arrived in stores Tuesday, decides on its own what to record. Whenever it’s on, the artificial intelligence inside is watching. “This doesn’t even *seem* innocent,” tweeted Elon Musk after Google announced Clips in October. When I first saw one, I couldn’t shake the feeling Google had created the creepy surveillance contraption in Dave Eggers’s Silicon Valley horror “The Circle.”

So in the interests of science and averting dystopia, I’ve been using a $250 Clips for the past two weeks. I turned its eye on a toddler playgroup. I wore it on the subway. I clipped it onto a feather toy at a cat cafe.