‘Sophia’ - the World’s First Robot to be Granted Citizenship Status

[StephenZA]

bloomberg_/is-anyone-listening-to-you-on-alexa-a-global-team-reviews-audio

Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening.

Sometimes, someone is.


Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers. The team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners’ homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa’s understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands.

 

[sledger]

If only someone had warned about this exact sort of thing happening ages ago.

 

[Ausage]

I'm just surprised they brute force it with thousands of human employees.

 

[nightprowler10]

I think we were discussing this in a different thread weren't we? So my understanding is that nothing gets recorded until it hears the trigger word. As I've said before, this is easy enough to verify if you watch your Wifi network traffic. So it's recording and sending to the cloud if I say "hey Alexa, order me shoe polish" which is then being analyzed by real people?

I guess my question is, why should I be concerned?

 

[Magrat Garlick]

in theory it could be traced back to your voice. In practice, with enough hashing and salting along the way, it should be decently anonymous. The tricky part is to get the ICTers to do that dull work of implementing that hashing and salting.

 

[nightprowler10]

Sorry if I'm being dense, but even if it's not anonymous, what's the potential harm? Everything I buy on Amazon is already cataloged, and I assume readily available information for authorities if they investigate me or being sold to 3rd parties.

 

[StephenZA]

Sorry if I'm being dense, but even if it's not anonymous, what's the potential harm? Everything I buy on Amazon is already cataloged, and I assume readily available information for authorities if they investigate me or being sold to 3rd parties.

So in the article they mention somebody in the shower, they also mention a kid screaming... even a potential assault. What happens if we are bringing into our homes a device that literally bugs us, the legal implications seem pretty big? And not everything could be illegal just embarrassing. I`m not a big believer in that big brother is watching us all the time (to impractical) but I`m not comfortable with everything I say or do being recorded either, I like my privacy.

The biggest thing about that article for me is not the potential implications (those are pretty obvious) but that amazon assured everybody they where not listening and they clearly were (not surprising really).... even if they just using to improve the product.

 

[nightprowler10]

So I guess I just hadn't read the whole thing yet. I was wrong that it only records when you want it to.

According to Amazon’s website, no audio is stored unless Echo detects the wake word or is activated by pressing a button. But sometimes Alexa appears to begin recording without any prompt at all, and the audio files start with a blaring television or unintelligible noise. Whether or not the activation is mistaken, the reviewers are required to transcribe it. One of the people said the auditors each transcribe as many as 100 recordings a day when Alexa receives no wake command or is triggered by accident.

Yeah, this is more concerning. Reading through, all of the home systems have some type of review system that requires humans, though Google seems to be doing it better by not having any identification for the voice samples and the voice samples themselves are distorted.

 

[vcs]

So in the article they mention somebody in the shower, they also mention a kid screaming... even a potential assault. What happens if we are bringing into our homes a device that literally bugs us, the legal implications seem pretty big? And not everything could be illegal just embarrassing. I`m not a big believer in that big brother is watching us all the time (to impractical) but I`m not comfortable with everything I say or do being recorded either, I like my privacy.

The biggest thing about that article for me is not the potential implications (those are pretty obvious) but that amazon assured everybody they where not listening and they clearly were (not surprising really).... even if they just using to improve the product.

Yep I agree. It didn't take me long to kick unnecessary stuff like Facebook out of my life when I felt that the invasion or privacy just wasn't worth the potential benefit of finding old schoolmates etc. If only I could do the same to Google, that would be ideal but that's just not realistic.

 

[StephenZA]

2-way communication, find it very difficult to believe that it would not be pretty easy to activate at any time. Saying all this I do think we are carrying a potential (and probable) listening device around with us all the time anyway - smart phones.

 

[sledger]

As usual, the problem is that this data can be used to build a profile of you, which can then be used to make automated-decisions about you that are invisible to you, some of which will be capable of having a profound impact on how you life your life.

 

[StephenZA]

As usual, the problem is that this data can be used to build a profile of you, which can then be used to make automated-decisions about you that are invisible to you, some of which will be capable of having a profound impact on how you life your life.

That is the more global insidious problem I agree..... but I thought this was just a bit more direct, I don't particularly want a centre in Indonesia transcription my conversations or whatever.

 

[sledger]

Quite right too.

I'm not at all convinced that Amazon are the only company doing this sort of thing either tbh. Wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the next scandal encompassing Google or Facebook or whoever.

 

[StephenZA]

Oh they most definitely all doing it.....

 

[Furball]

As usual, the problem is that this data can be used to build a profile of you, which can then be used to make automated-decisions about you that are invisible to you, some of which will be capable of having a profound impact on how you life your life.

It's interesting how much Google still gets wrong about me.

The amount of utter crap that comes up on my Google tiles newsfeed is baffling. They've done a reasonable job of working out what football teams I'm interested in but there's some other stuff that appears on there that's just bizarre.

 

[Ausage]

May have mentioned this here but I'm sure I've had ads pop up on my phone due to conversations I've had in proximity to it.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

It's interesting how much Google still gets wrong about me.

The amount of utter crap that comes up on my Google tiles newsfeed is baffling. They've done a reasonable job of working out what football teams I'm interested in but there's some other stuff that appears on there that's just bizarre.

Haha I search about so much sport that every time I nerd out about some new club it goes to the news feed. The algorithm seems to have been designed by people who are fundamentally incapable of realizing people may like more than one sport or team.

 

[sledger]

It's interesting how much Google still gets wrong about me.

The amount of utter crap that comes up on my Google tiles newsfeed is baffling. They've done a reasonable job of working out what football teams I'm interested in but there's some other stuff that appears on there that's just bizarre.

Predictions that are wrong may be even more dangerous than those which are correct tbh.

 

[Prince EWS]

Predictions that are wrong may be even more dangerous than those which are correct tbh.

Yeah my "redpilling" for lack of a less eyeroll-inducing term on this fact is what really caused me to start fearing it tbh.

 

[Spark]

I also wonder whether this algorithm will soon be monetised in the sense of having visibility access sold too - I've started noticing that the recommendations on certain topics always end up at the same websites - for example, do enough searching about solar energy in Aus (for entirely non-political reasons, just about personal households needs) and you almost certainly will be directed to RenewEconomy on the tiles recommendations. It's a good website, but it does make me think that one day soon, if not already, there'll be a thing where you can essentially buy visibility through such algorithmic searches and tiles - so when the tiles recommend a certain website to do with a certain topic, they end up going to yours more often than they otherwise would.