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RE: We have an illusion of control, but do you know exactly what's going on inside the slab of black mirror? I guess this is true (for most people, it's definit

RE: We have an illusion of control, but do you know exactly what's going on inside the slab of black mirror? I guess this is true (for most people, it's definitely true in practice), but the difference with Echo's is that it's not just that it's _possible_ that the device is listening and recording, it's that those are proudly displayed as critical _features_ of the product. We worry about things like "the apps on my phone could be secretly recording me", but then buy Echos, Google Home's, etc, all of which require "always listening" to function at all. NOTE: I own an Echo and love it, despite being otherwise fairly privacy conscious (I know that these two statements are wildly inconsistent).

terandle 8y ago
Cell phones have the same always listening features like Hey Siri, Ok Google, etc.
close04 8y ago
One difference could be that if you discover your phone is listening and sending data that's a scandal right there while digital assistants do it by design. It simply lowers the bar to you being spied on, all else being equal.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  Uh, no, my echo “by design” only starts recording after it hears the word “Alexa”. Sure it’s possible that that’s a lie, but that’s a different question.
- judofyr 8y ago
  > One difference could be that if you discover your phone is listening and sending data that's a scandal right there while digital assistants do it by design. What do you mean? All digital assistants I know about use a wake word and they all seem to respect it very seriously: - Incidents where the assistant has misheard the wake word causes headlines across the Internet and there's always a reply from an official spokesperson (e.g: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/24/17391898/amazon-alexa-private-conversation-recording-explanation https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/24/17391898/amazon-alexa-pri...) - When Google Home Mini had a (hardware) bug where the button could cause it to record all the time, Google issued a software update which disabled the button completely. For months the button was a no-op. https://www.cnet.com/news/google-dumps-home-minis-top-touch-function-over-privacy/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-dumps-home-minis-top-touch-... - In the Google Home app you can see all recordings that the device has done, play them back, and see how it was interpreted. It's pretty clear that they want to be transparent about what the device does. All in all it seems to me that Google/Amazon is aware that a "we record everything"-scandal can be devastating for the product.
  - close04 8y ago
    Maybe I wasn’t vert clear. They have the recording and sending functionality built in as main attraction. And they’re made to send that data because that’s their purpose. My phone is not supposed to do that so if I discover it does the intentions are clear. And now slightly tangential, my phone will never accidentally hear the hot word, start recording, send the recording. It can’t accidentally misunderstand my pronunciation and do whatever the hotword squatter wanted to do. It’s easier to abuse the one core functionality of a device than one that’s an afterthought and can be more easily disabled or stands out when it’s used. That’s because the legitimate and abusive behaviors almost perfectly overlap from a user point of view in a digital assistant. Imagine being spied through an always on live streaming camera and being spied through camera that’s off most times. You may notice it powers on and sends data it shouldn’t.
mikeash 8y ago
The critical feature is that it’s always listening locally for a wake word. It doesn’t record anything until it hears that. There’s no real difference between “my Echo claims to only do low power wake word recognition when idle, but actually sends everything to Amazon” and “my cell phone claims not to listen to me, but actually sends everything it hears to the manufacturer.”

terandle 8y ago

Cell phones have the same always listening features like Hey Siri, Ok Google, etc.

close04 8y ago

One difference could be that if you discover your phone is listening and sending data that's a scandal right there while digital assistants do it by design. It simply lowers the bar to you being spied on, all else being equal.

umanwizard 8y ago
Uh, no, my echo “by design” only starts recording after it hears the word “Alexa”. Sure it’s possible that that’s a lie, but that’s a different question.
judofyr 8y ago
> One difference could be that if you discover your phone is listening and sending data that's a scandal right there while digital assistants do it by design. What do you mean? All digital assistants I know about use a wake word and they all seem to respect it very seriously: - Incidents where the assistant has misheard the wake word causes headlines across the Internet and there's always a reply from an official spokesperson (e.g: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/24/17391898/amazon-alexa-private-conversation-recording-explanation https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/24/17391898/amazon-alexa-pri...) - When Google Home Mini had a (hardware) bug where the button could cause it to record all the time, Google issued a software update which disabled the button completely. For months the button was a no-op. https://www.cnet.com/news/google-dumps-home-minis-top-touch-function-over-privacy/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-dumps-home-minis-top-touch-... - In the Google Home app you can see all recordings that the device has done, play them back, and see how it was interpreted. It's pretty clear that they want to be transparent about what the device does. All in all it seems to me that Google/Amazon is aware that a "we record everything"-scandal can be devastating for the product.
- close04 8y ago
  Maybe I wasn’t vert clear. They have the recording and sending functionality built in as main attraction. And they’re made to send that data because that’s their purpose. My phone is not supposed to do that so if I discover it does the intentions are clear. And now slightly tangential, my phone will never accidentally hear the hot word, start recording, send the recording. It can’t accidentally misunderstand my pronunciation and do whatever the hotword squatter wanted to do. It’s easier to abuse the one core functionality of a device than one that’s an afterthought and can be more easily disabled or stands out when it’s used. That’s because the legitimate and abusive behaviors almost perfectly overlap from a user point of view in a digital assistant. Imagine being spied through an always on live streaming camera and being spied through camera that’s off most times. You may notice it powers on and sends data it shouldn’t.

mikeash 8y ago

The critical feature is that it’s always listening locally for a wake word. It doesn’t record anything until it hears that. There’s no real difference between “my Echo claims to only do low power wake word recognition when idle, but actually sends everything to Amazon” and “my cell phone claims not to listen to me, but actually sends everything it hears to the manufacturer.”