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I like to imagine sometimes how these kinds of "revelations" happen in tech newsrooms. Reporter: Tell it to me straight, do you listen to the recordings? Googl

I like to imagine sometimes how these kinds of "revelations" happen in tech newsrooms. Reporter: Tell it to me straight, do you listen to the recordings? Google: Well yea, that's how we train the... Reporter: WE GOT 'EM! It's like the "Apple admits throttling CPU when battery starts dying" story all over again. It wasn't a secret, you just didn't ask before.

windexh8er 7y ago
There are three types of lies: lies of commission, lies of omission and lies of influence. Just because nobody "asked" Google (your example) doesn't mean Google didn't lie (and/ or mislead) about it (lie of omission). Most people assume machines are doing the voice processing. The game changes when there's a human with a, potentially, subjective thought process to what they're hearing.
- cblades 7y ago
  No one that gives it more than a passing thought could fail to realize that there has to be some human interaction. Someone has to do manual transcription to check against output for some portion of the data.
  - this_was_posted 7y ago
    But is it also natural to assume that this is done without explicit consent? With telemetry data for applications you can usually disable this kind of inspection of your data.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Why would ordinary people assume that this testing is done on live customer data? I understand that this is a common practice in the industry, it's not the only way to do the testing, and I'd bet it would surprise most people.
  - davemp 7y ago
    > No one* that gives it more than a passing thought *who has an understanding of ML
    - rvnx 7y ago
      the adjacent question is, are humans watching Google Nest cameras to train ML models ? the answer is not so clear
  - windexh8er 7y ago
    I don't buy that. If Google trains models with humans then that should be transparent. Data collection sorely needs policies to cover transparency of processing and disclose all of the forms in a very straightforward manner.
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    I would think most people would think that they write software that can understand human speech, the same way they write software that can make a web page. For the people that do realize it needs to be trained, most of them probably think that it's trained using internal data. Data created at Google or such. Only people that really understand ML are likely to realize they need the scale of data only their customers can provide to do a really good job (_if_ they even do need that).
  - NikolaNovak 7y ago
    That is fundamentally incorrect. My 74 years old father in law uses Google Assistant and Google Home way more than I do; they are a brilliant way for him to interact with technology. He has absolutely no inkling that any of that leaves the little gray device in his kitchen, let alone any "Cloud" thing in the background, let alone that anybody is listening to it. He would be genuinely, completely surprised, and is likely to be very uncomfortable, to be presented with any of these facts. I will venture that he's more representative of an average user than you or I; as techies, we must consciously remind ourselves that most people are not techies, otherwise our view of society will be skewed in the extreme. :-/
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  The biggest self deception the industry has about computer algos and especially machine learning is that it is somehow objective.
sp332 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20402070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20402070 "People who install Google Home or Assistant are not advised that people can listen to the voice commands."
danShumway 7y ago
In some ways, this is missing the point. To people working in machine learning, this isn't a revelation. To ordinary people, it is. A common refrain that comes up in discussions about privacy is that ordinary consumers don't care about stuff like Google Home. They don't care about privacy, only weird tech people care about privacy. However, the fact that articles like this get traction shows that a substantial portion of ordinary people don't understand what privacy they're giving up when they use Google Home. They didn't understand when they were installing the devices that a human was going to be able to listen to their recordings. And when they do understand that a human might be listening, that creeps them out. This implies two things: a) if properly informed and educated, normal people probably would care about privacy more. Part of the reason why it's mostly tech-people complaining about Google Home and Alexa is because it's mostly tech-people who understand what these devices do. b) consumers aren't being properly informed about the privacy implications of devices like Google Home and Alexa, or else they wouldn't be surprised by any of this. If this news story is getting traction, it means that Google did not do a good enough job informing users about who had access to their data.
- ben_jones 7y ago
  Or to put it a little simpler: Way fewer units would've been sold if consumers knew third world contractors would be listening to their private home conversations. If the way you make your meat is messy, you have an obligation to share that at the dinner table if you are a good actor.
  - safog 7y ago
    Why does it matter if it's Americans listening to it vs third world contractors? Also Google and Amazon are a large American companies that mostly try to do the right thing in terms of user privacy. I'd be more concerned about the random IoT microwaves and fridges made by a small company in China or Japan with their own assistant features built in sending audio to god knows where. Atleast I can reasonably trust the wakeword implementations for Alexa and Home, you can't even trust than with other h/w. It again comes back to, yes, researchers listen to a carefully chosen random selection of audio clips and they're not really targeting a single user. It's impossible to explain that nuance in marketing material.
Medicalidiot 7y ago
Finding out how the sausage is made is uncomfortable.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
I'd love to see this tactic played out in divorce proceedings. - "I wasn't having a secret affair. You just never asked if I was sleeping around."
rando444 7y ago
But we know how this revelation happened. One of their "language experts" (subcontractors) shared the recordings with the news media. He did this because the recordings he was concerned about were of people who didn't know they were being recorded or talking to the speaker. This article and your comment manage to spin this entire story into Google talking points.
JLK_121416 7y ago
It's probably a Belgian television news item that initiated this, was all over the news today. +1000 clips were leaked to the reporter, who found some addresses in the clips, and went to these locations to confront the people living there. They also had some Google employees anonymously speaking about the things they hear: identifiable information, private conversations or actvities... Nothing shocking really, if you are a bit into IT stuff, but apparently most people aren't. https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2019/07/10/google-luistert-mee/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2019/07/10/google-luistert-mee/

windexh8er 7y ago

There are three types of lies: lies of commission, lies of omission and lies of influence. Just because nobody "asked" Google (your example) doesn't mean Google didn't lie (and/ or mislead) about it (lie of omission). Most people assume machines are doing the voice processing. The game changes when there's a human with a, potentially, subjective thought process to what they're hearing.

cblades 7y ago
No one that gives it more than a passing thought could fail to realize that there has to be some human interaction. Someone has to do manual transcription to check against output for some portion of the data.
- this_was_posted 7y ago
  But is it also natural to assume that this is done without explicit consent? With telemetry data for applications you can usually disable this kind of inspection of your data.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Why would ordinary people assume that this testing is done on live customer data? I understand that this is a common practice in the industry, it's not the only way to do the testing, and I'd bet it would surprise most people.
- davemp 7y ago
  > No one* that gives it more than a passing thought *who has an understanding of ML
  - rvnx 7y ago
    the adjacent question is, are humans watching Google Nest cameras to train ML models ? the answer is not so clear
- windexh8er 7y ago
  I don't buy that. If Google trains models with humans then that should be transparent. Data collection sorely needs policies to cover transparency of processing and disclose all of the forms in a very straightforward manner.
- RHSeeger 7y ago
  I would think most people would think that they write software that can understand human speech, the same way they write software that can make a web page. For the people that do realize it needs to be trained, most of them probably think that it's trained using internal data. Data created at Google or such. Only people that really understand ML are likely to realize they need the scale of data only their customers can provide to do a really good job (_if_ they even do need that).
- NikolaNovak 7y ago
  That is fundamentally incorrect. My 74 years old father in law uses Google Assistant and Google Home way more than I do; they are a brilliant way for him to interact with technology. He has absolutely no inkling that any of that leaves the little gray device in his kitchen, let alone any "Cloud" thing in the background, let alone that anybody is listening to it. He would be genuinely, completely surprised, and is likely to be very uncomfortable, to be presented with any of these facts. I will venture that he's more representative of an average user than you or I; as techies, we must consciously remind ourselves that most people are not techies, otherwise our view of society will be skewed in the extreme. :-/
throwaway2048 7y ago
The biggest self deception the industry has about computer algos and especially machine learning is that it is somehow objective.

sp332 7y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20402070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20402070 "People who install Google Home or Assistant are not advised that people can listen to the voice commands."

danShumway 7y ago

In some ways, this is missing the point. To people working in machine learning, this isn't a revelation. To ordinary people, it is. A common refrain that comes up in discussions about privacy is that ordinary consumers don't care about stuff like Google Home. They don't care about privacy, only weird tech people care about privacy. However, the fact that articles like this get traction shows that a substantial portion of ordinary people don't understand what privacy they're giving up when they use Google Home. They didn't understand when they were installing the devices that a human was going to be able to listen to their recordings. And when they do understand that a human might be listening, that creeps them out. This implies two things: a) if properly informed and educated, normal people probably would care about privacy more. Part of the reason why it's mostly tech-people complaining about Google Home and Alexa is because it's mostly tech-people who understand what these devices do. b) consumers aren't being properly informed about the privacy implications of devices like Google Home and Alexa, or else they wouldn't be surprised by any of this. If this news story is getting traction, it means that Google did not do a good enough job informing users about who had access to their data.

ben_jones 7y ago
Or to put it a little simpler: Way fewer units would've been sold if consumers knew third world contractors would be listening to their private home conversations. If the way you make your meat is messy, you have an obligation to share that at the dinner table if you are a good actor.
- safog 7y ago
  Why does it matter if it's Americans listening to it vs third world contractors? Also Google and Amazon are a large American companies that mostly try to do the right thing in terms of user privacy. I'd be more concerned about the random IoT microwaves and fridges made by a small company in China or Japan with their own assistant features built in sending audio to god knows where. Atleast I can reasonably trust the wakeword implementations for Alexa and Home, you can't even trust than with other h/w. It again comes back to, yes, researchers listen to a carefully chosen random selection of audio clips and they're not really targeting a single user. It's impossible to explain that nuance in marketing material.

Medicalidiot 7y ago

Finding out how the sausage is made is uncomfortable.

inflatableDodo 7y ago

I'd love to see this tactic played out in divorce proceedings. - "I wasn't having a secret affair. You just never asked if I was sleeping around."

rando444 7y ago

But we know how this revelation happened. One of their "language experts" (subcontractors) shared the recordings with the news media. He did this because the recordings he was concerned about were of people who didn't know they were being recorded or talking to the speaker. This article and your comment manage to spin this entire story into Google talking points.

JLK_121416 7y ago

It's probably a Belgian television news item that initiated this, was all over the news today. +1000 clips were leaked to the reporter, who found some addresses in the clips, and went to these locations to confront the people living there. They also had some Google employees anonymously speaking about the things they hear: identifiable information, private conversations or actvities... Nothing shocking really, if you are a bit into IT stuff, but apparently most people aren't. https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2019/07/10/google-luistert-mee/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2019/07/10/google-luistert-mee/