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"Amazon has submitted a patent application, recently granted, outlining how the company could recommend chicken soup or cough drops to people who use its Echo d

• CaptainZapp 8y ago
  What beggars believe is that in the novel, 1984, you didn't have a choice if you want a televisor in your home, or not. But people put an always on spy device connected to Amazon (or Google, or Facebook [honest, we won't spy on you, maybe]) into their homes. To each his own, I guess, but is the exchange of a little bit convenience to a potential privacy nuclear device really worth it?
  • arethuza 8y ago
    Wasn't it just party members who had telescreens? Most people (i.e the proles) posed no threat to the Inner Party and therefore weren't monitored that closely.
    • CaptainZapp 8y ago
      You may be right. It's over 30 years since I read it. Seems to be a good idea to reread it, though.
      • dwighttk 8y ago
        Read Brave New World too.
        • zodPod 8y ago
          I liked Brave New World better. I read it a few years ago and honestly it felt like it was just talking about present times.
    • fidndifj 8y ago
      The proles were less monitored, but there were telescreens hidden everywhere in the city just in case. Besides why have telescreens, when children ratting out their parents are the most effective soln.? That’s what scares me the most of the next twenty years.
      • Loughla 8y ago
        >That’s what scares me the most of the next twenty years. Explain, please.
        • fidndifj 8y ago
          Kids speak the truth. Sometimes the truth they say can get ppl in trouble.
          • Loughla 8y ago
            That still doesn't make sense. Why is that the thing that scares you the most in the next 20 years?
            • quantum_magpie 8y ago
              Because such tactics were already successfully used in the past -- WW2 Germany, and post-WW2 Soviet Union. And they were quite effective, too. Seeing as the world is moving into another dystopian era, the same mechanisms can be employed again, this time enhanced by the electronic surveilance too. Even just a single fraction of it -- a mandatory (at least where I live) cellphone, with permanent location tracking by the service providers is scary enough right now.
    • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      It's been a few years since I read it but I remember them going to the woods where they hoped they would be out of the reach of microphones, so I assume monitoring devices were fairly ubiquitous.
      • masklinn 8y ago
        Or they're looking for telescreen-free areas in places where they're supposed to be: party members slumming it in prole areas would not be normal and proper (at least beyond basic black market stuff)
    • masklinn 8y ago
      Yes, the "proles" mostly live in poverty, and while they can purchase telescreens they're not explicitly kept down, being mostly kept in poverty and entertained. The party keeps an eye on the behaviour of the masses (and will take out possible leaders arising) but there is no individual oversight.
  • village-idiot 8y ago
    Facebook is starting to advertise a dedicated video chat device to put into your home. That is the last thing I would ever want, the revulsion I felt at the idea was visceral.
    • CaptainZapp 8y ago
      Me too. And Facebook from all companies. There's probably yet another of Zuck's apology tours coming in 2019.
      • genofon 8y ago
        I'm confident there are people at FB already preparing it.
    • rvense 8y ago
      I wonder if it will become socially acceptable to ask people to unplug such devices when you are in their home.
      • 908087 8y ago
        I regularly do this. Nobody has had an issue with it, and most have voiced their own concerns about the devices they own after I brought it up. Some of them have taken to unplugging them in advance when they know I'm coming by, and others have decided to ditch them entirely out of concern for their own privacy. That said, my friends and family all know my stance on privacy-invasive tech, so none of them were surprised by my requests.
      • village-idiot 8y ago
        It's already acceptable to ask people to put their cell phones away in social situations. "Please turn off the monitoring device in the house" is not a large leap.
  • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    > But people put an always on spy device connected to Amazon (or Google, or Facebook [honest, we won't spy on you, maybe]) into their homes. Do you not walk around with one in your pocket most of the time? (I don't have one of these devices either, just playing devil's advocate)
    • sonnyblarney 8y ago
      Your iPhone is not listening to you right now, but your Echo is. That's a big difference.
      • menacingly 8y ago
        A software control prevents your iphone from spying on you, and a software control prevents your echo from spying on you. In both cases you aren't really sure it's the case, you wouldn't know if it were suddenly disregarded or circumvented, and you're just trusting in the good behavior of your chosen provider.
        • _jal 8y ago
          You also don't know that you're not being tailed by a PI, that your neighbors are not focusing a mic on your home, or that your dentist isn't on the lizard-peoples' payroll. However, we all make certain risk tradeoffs based on numerous things, including proxy signals. For instance, I would be intensely surprised to find out my downstairs neighbor was recoding me, based on multiple years of interactions. Likewise, I find the signal Apple sends ("We need a US-based GDPR") about privacy rather more compelling than the signal Amazon sends ("scour the mic for hints about product we can shift"). I mean, sure, while both $huge_bank and your hypothetical deadbeat relative might both steal your money, I bet I know which one you choose to to leave your money with.
          • menacingly 8y ago
            I'm just saying it boils down to trust either way, not weighing in on which way that trust should lean.
  • zodPod 8y ago
    > in the novel, 1984 you didn't have a choice if you want a televisor in your home, or not. This makes a lot of sense I recently heard a comparison between Orwell and Huxley that stated that they differed mostly on how they believed control would be taken. In the case of Orwell, he believed that control could be punished into the population and that they'd comply for fear of being punished again. Though, Skinner had evidence that this wasn't really feasible. In the case of Huxley, he believed that it could be rewarded into the population to the point where the population would crave it and seek it out. Feels like Huxley had the right idea. People are paying really good money to buy these spy devices to put into their homes.
    • heavenlyblue 8y ago
      To be fair, I don't think it's worth discussing which of these paths we will take. What's worth discussing, although - is the fact that these two (opposing and heavily developed) points of view both will degenerate the society towards the same authoritarian state. Imagine a world where the government uses terrorism as a justification for it's surveillance programs and the companies are pushing the surveillance devices for customer satisfaction? Wait a minute... The solution space is much wider and is thus more probable.
  • fjsolwmv 8y ago
    It "beggars belief", but "beggars believe" is an amusing eggcorn.
  • gumby 8y ago
    > What beggars believe is that in the novel, 1984, you didn't have a choice if you want a televisor in your home, or not. Actually that was true of government workers and perhaps all of the middle classes but not the workers (“proles”). A key plot element of the story is Winston and Julia heading into the parole areas to (in vain) evade the oversight of Big Brother. The implication is that under such regimes the workers supposedly believe in the regime (and in the idea that they control it, rather than the other way around) so strongly that oversight is unnecessary. It’s related to why trade unions are illegal in China (and were in the Soviet Union): they are “unnecessary” as the whole government is supposedly the worker’s party. Orwell was a committed socialist (despite/because of) his colonial service and some of his sneers at “sandal-wearing vegetarians in bad suits” in Wigan Pier. But by the end of WWII he had realized that the socialist regimes were in many ways quite similar to the fascist ones and so his last two novels were reactions to that. But all his writing was from a Fabian socialist-idealist perspective.
• usaphp 8y ago
  How long before it suggests you to purchase viagra if it hears something in your bedroom
  • linker3000 8y ago
    How long before it suggests you to purchase viagra if it hears nothing in your bedroom
    • qbrass 8y ago
      How long before it suggest your gardener purchase Viagra if it hears nothing in your bedroom.
• yalogin 8y ago
  You know amazon’s only objective is to sell you goods from their site. No matter what they do and what they say, sooner or later they always will gravitate towards that. So I don’t ever will believe them. Just like I don’t trust google. When times are tough and they have to make a choice the decision is easy for them and their board, it’s never in the user’s favor.
  • hrktb 8y ago
    Is this stance actionnable in any way ? Also this would apply to basically any entity you make a commercial transaction with. The grocery store, your dentist, car repairs, bank, hair dresser, highway tolls, tooth brush sites, opticians. Is it still relevant to explicitly warn yourself "in the end they won't work in my favor" when that's basically living your life as a consumer.
    • xkcd-sucks 8y ago
      Yes-- For example, there are plenty of scams related to car repair. Some scams result in the customer paying too much for work that's unnecessary/never actually done, and some scams break things to make more work in the future. And then there are the "honest mechanics" who you generally find by literal word of mouth Likewise, some banks scam customers by charging fees for some things (overdraft, minimum balance etc) and then deliberately structure transactions to make a customer's account enter a fee state. For example, running all withdrawals from a 24 hour period before running all the deposits from that time period so the account is temporarily overdrawn. Et cetera. The globally actionable advice might be to keep one's eyes open for signs of scamming, and to keep one's affairs such that damage is minimized + you have alternatives when you confirm that you are being scammed
• megous 8y ago
  "Jim, I have detected signs of Dextromethorphan abuse in one of your children. No need to worry, Jim. Help is already on the way, the door will be unlocked automatically via Amazon Key..., your children will be returened, clean..."
  • jtr_47 8y ago
    "Jim, it appears you have been yelling at your child. We have contacted child services, submitted for a warrant to enter your home automatically to allow lawful entry into your home to remove your child for further investigation."
    • pdkl95 8y ago
      For a disturbingly plausible sketch of what that kind of thinking grows into, see Tom Scott's short "Oversight". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIuf1V1FhpY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIuf1V1FhpY
    • noonespecial 8y ago
      All it takes is for parts of child services to be privatized like the prisons currently are and we arrive at: "Your kids are starving. Carl's Jr. believes no child should go hungry. You are an unfit mother. Your children will be placed in the custody of Carl's Jr."
      • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        There's a select set of government entities that are so inefficient, bad at what they do and citizen/consumer unfriendly that an evil corporation would be an improvement over the status quo because existing status quo sets the bar on the floor and the evil corporation at least has an incentive to be equally terrible in an efficient way. I put child services, the ATF, DMV (or whatever your local acronym is) and probably a couple others I'm not thinking of in that category.
        • wkearney99 8y ago
• ransom1538 8y ago
  It would be neat if it was a catch and kill. They pay for the patent - simply to chase after any immoral competitors using it in the distant future.
• stickfigure 8y ago
  I don't know if Brave New World or 1984 was right. You will enjoy this debate about that exact question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31CcclqEiZw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31CcclqEiZw Fantastic oratory, excerpts acted out by famous actors, intriguing ideas. Marvelous production.
• nyxtom 8y ago
  For some people this is actually useful to have something intelligent figure out what might be useful/helpful. The downside however, is that there isn't an incentive for utility - just whatever is sold to the highest bidder. Recommendations aren't necessarily an evil thing even given context, but the issue is bias and creating the wrong incentives. I like that systems are intelligent enough to know whether product X is best matched up with products Y and Z based on my personal preference, but what I don't like is when that process becomes overly intrusive and recommends things not because of utility but because I've been "nudged" to buy something that some advertiser managed to bid for the widest reach.
  • Bartweiss 8y ago
    > actually useful... however, is that there isn't an incentive for utility I hope this is something we start recognizing more broadly. Even the 'scary' features of these things could be useful and preserve privacy. I can think of a half-dozen IoT, voice control, or "Smart Home" features I would really like to have. But in practice, not only am I unwilling to make the privacy tradeoff, the existing solutions are made noticeably lower-quality by their monetization and data gathering. As a basic example, IoT products should (obviously!) work offline for all functionality that doesn't actually need an internet connection. But even a Chromecast won't function on a local network unless it's allowed to call home constantly. People sell lightswitches that cease functioning without a nonstop internet connection. That's insane. Worse, my ideal use cases would all involve heavy integration between devices. When that's available at all, it's based on attempts at ecosystem lock-in. Not only does that give one company extensive data, it destroys any market competition or ability to choose the products and features I want. Even the crudest tools for integrating for this stuff don't work. IFTTT is "user friendly", but half the supported components can't be used as triggers/inputs without joining their developer program. The monetization and privacy issues with this stuff aren't just a cost for the service, the way TV ads are. They actively destroy value. I would pay a massive premium for no-data-gathered hardware with robust APIs, but without wiring my own devices from scratch, I can't.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
• kamaal 8y ago
  >>Really glad I don't own one of these things. Until these devices become mandatory, hard requirement by every government to detect and quarantine people carrying a disease spreading virus during an epidemic. Or the insurance company insisting you install one at home, to screen you if you are a smoker.
• patagonia 8y ago
  “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” by Jerry Mander. I’m on my phone right now so can’t really give a good overview of it. But. Suffice it to say, it’s eye opening and 100% relevant. Highly recommend reading.
• Illniyar 8y ago
  How in the world can those be patents?
• hathawsh 8y ago
  FWIW, my family has had an Echo for almost a year and we've come to realize it's really just a fancy radio. The microphone is disabled most of the time (except when we're requesting a song), the ordering functionality is disabled because we would never order anything that way, and the various apps and integration we've tried are all more difficult to use than simply doing things "manually". Meanwhile, it's nice to have a DJ in the house. Amazon is probably a bit frustrated with us and other families like us. Even the songs we listen to are generally a bit old and probably don't indicate very many preferences that advertisers would want to target.