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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

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.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    > Also Google and Amazon are a large American companies that mostly try to do the right thing in terms of user privacy. Google has an atrocious record when it comes to user privacy. They're the people who put a hidden microphone in Nest thermostats for instance.
yongjik 7y ago
As an ex-Googler, I'd like to say that "ordinary people" still won't understand what privacy they're giving up. Before the news, they underestimated it; not they overestimate it, but still without clear understanding of what's happening. A group of researchers listening to a random sample of audio clip with no way to identify actual speakers is very different from someone being able to look up your name and address and pull down your conversation for leisure. (To be fair, the latter is technically not impossible - it's just that such an act will likely trigger half a dozen alarms, and the perpetrator will be fired quickly. Unless it's the government secretly asking for your information - but then, if the government is specifically looking for you, all bets are off anyway.) It's basically the same as Google search. If you type anything into Google's search box, your search will be recorded and preserved forever so that Google's engineers can analyze usage patterns. How else would they improve their search algorithm? Edit: I probably shouldn't have used "forever" - I don't know exactly how long your search results will be preserved. If it helps, consider it replaced by "long enough that someone can write a TechCrunch article that enrages people".
- reaperducer 7y ago
  How else would they improve their search algorithm? There are lots of ways. Ways that other industries test and refine without violating privacy. One example: Having a group of people who sign up to be part of your testing. That way there's informed consent.
  - UncleMeat 7y ago
    That's what happens now. You you check the "use my data to improve xyz services" box.
  - GrapeFriedNiggr 7y ago
    Well yeah, but it would be way more expensive and you would have orders of magnitude less data. There are also issues with biased sampling. Point being, the search wouldn't be as good.
    - 7y ago
Someone1234 7y ago
> To people working in machine learning, this isn't a revelation. To ordinary people, it is. The product's tagline/marketing lead is literally: "Get answers from Google." Why would ordinary people who purchased a product to "Get answers from Google" be surprised when it sends the questions to Google to get answers from Google..? You don't need to be an ML expert to read the product's marketing and use basic reasoning to conduce that in order to get answers from X then X will need to know the questions. That has nothing to do with ML/AI/speech recognition. It is just basic common sense. > 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 gain traction in niche tech circles, where people pretend that the general public doesn't grasp that Google/Amazon/Apple is on the other end and claim they're defending other's privacy. The traction isn't proof of anything, except a handful of people really dislike these conveniences (and use other's purported ignorance as justification for their whole argument).
- danso 7y ago
  You might need to talk to more ordinary people. Most people are very surprised at what data of theirs is stored, even for blindingly obvious features -- e.g. the list of everyone you've ever blocked on Facebook, which, obviously, is a list FB must store at some point in order to enforce it. Find an ordinary person and ask them to download their data from FB and Google and see if they aren't surprised.
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    Being surprised about things you've forgotten you did on a service, and reading a product's own marketing (and core functionality) aren't really comparable. I just asked a non-tech person behind me if they thought that when you asked Google Assistant a question it was sent to Google to answer, and they shrugged and said yes like it was a stupid question. What ordinary person doesn't understand that when you asked Google a question that Google knows the question you asked? It doesn't make sense.
    - 7y ago
Ididntdothis 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." The non-tech people I know assume that this data is used by highly qualified people in tightly secured areas and not by underpaid contractors somewhere in the world.
godelski 7y ago
I'd also like to add that most people don't understand what can be done with all this data. If you start explaining even simple examples so people they think you're a conspiracy theorist, unless they're already a conspiracy theorist then they "already know". But a simple example like the story of Target mailing coupons to a house with a pregnant teenage daughter. Many people still think that's impossible or the father hard to be really dumb not to notice the girl was pregnant. As techies we look at that sorry and say "well duh, that's not even that difficult" while non techies have a hard time comprehending how that's possible. This is a huge disconnect. So I'd argue that even though some people understand that they're giving up their data that they don't understand how it can be used. My favorite example is just waiting for someone to mention how Facebook must be listening to them because they had a conversation in private with their friend about something, say an extremely new found interest that "they've never talked about before ever". I'll explain how the process works and how we can connect certain things together, how there is proximity, and knowing social groups and structures. That while the microphone would be useful, it isn't necessary for a good guess (and that it is a guess). I think most people here would say "well duhh" but try it with your relatives, see how crazy they think you are and that it has to be a microphone. There's a big disconnect, this is a problem.

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.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  > Also Google and Amazon are a large American companies that mostly try to do the right thing in terms of user privacy. Google has an atrocious record when it comes to user privacy. They're the people who put a hidden microphone in Nest thermostats for instance.

yongjik 7y ago

As an ex-Googler, I'd like to say that "ordinary people" still won't understand what privacy they're giving up. Before the news, they underestimated it; not they overestimate it, but still without clear understanding of what's happening. A group of researchers listening to a random sample of audio clip with no way to identify actual speakers is very different from someone being able to look up your name and address and pull down your conversation for leisure. (To be fair, the latter is technically not impossible - it's just that such an act will likely trigger half a dozen alarms, and the perpetrator will be fired quickly. Unless it's the government secretly asking for your information - but then, if the government is specifically looking for you, all bets are off anyway.) It's basically the same as Google search. If you type anything into Google's search box, your search will be recorded and preserved forever so that Google's engineers can analyze usage patterns. How else would they improve their search algorithm? Edit: I probably shouldn't have used "forever" - I don't know exactly how long your search results will be preserved. If it helps, consider it replaced by "long enough that someone can write a TechCrunch article that enrages people".

reaperducer 7y ago
How else would they improve their search algorithm? There are lots of ways. Ways that other industries test and refine without violating privacy. One example: Having a group of people who sign up to be part of your testing. That way there's informed consent.
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  That's what happens now. You you check the "use my data to improve xyz services" box.
- GrapeFriedNiggr 7y ago
  Well yeah, but it would be way more expensive and you would have orders of magnitude less data. There are also issues with biased sampling. Point being, the search wouldn't be as good.
  - 7y ago

Someone1234 7y ago

> To people working in machine learning, this isn't a revelation. To ordinary people, it is. The product's tagline/marketing lead is literally: "Get answers from Google." Why would ordinary people who purchased a product to "Get answers from Google" be surprised when it sends the questions to Google to get answers from Google..? You don't need to be an ML expert to read the product's marketing and use basic reasoning to conduce that in order to get answers from X then X will need to know the questions. That has nothing to do with ML/AI/speech recognition. It is just basic common sense. > 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 gain traction in niche tech circles, where people pretend that the general public doesn't grasp that Google/Amazon/Apple is on the other end and claim they're defending other's privacy. The traction isn't proof of anything, except a handful of people really dislike these conveniences (and use other's purported ignorance as justification for their whole argument).

danso 7y ago
You might need to talk to more ordinary people. Most people are very surprised at what data of theirs is stored, even for blindingly obvious features -- e.g. the list of everyone you've ever blocked on Facebook, which, obviously, is a list FB must store at some point in order to enforce it. Find an ordinary person and ask them to download their data from FB and Google and see if they aren't surprised.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Being surprised about things you've forgotten you did on a service, and reading a product's own marketing (and core functionality) aren't really comparable. I just asked a non-tech person behind me if they thought that when you asked Google Assistant a question it was sent to Google to answer, and they shrugged and said yes like it was a stupid question. What ordinary person doesn't understand that when you asked Google a question that Google knows the question you asked? It doesn't make sense.
  - 7y ago

Ididntdothis 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." The non-tech people I know assume that this data is used by highly qualified people in tightly secured areas and not by underpaid contractors somewhere in the world.

godelski 7y ago

I'd also like to add that most people don't understand what can be done with all this data. If you start explaining even simple examples so people they think you're a conspiracy theorist, unless they're already a conspiracy theorist then they "already know". But a simple example like the story of Target mailing coupons to a house with a pregnant teenage daughter. Many people still think that's impossible or the father hard to be really dumb not to notice the girl was pregnant. As techies we look at that sorry and say "well duh, that's not even that difficult" while non techies have a hard time comprehending how that's possible. This is a huge disconnect. So I'd argue that even though some people understand that they're giving up their data that they don't understand how it can be used. My favorite example is just waiting for someone to mention how Facebook must be listening to them because they had a conversation in private with their friend about something, say an extremely new found interest that "they've never talked about before ever". I'll explain how the process works and how we can connect certain things together, how there is proximity, and knowing social groups and structures. That while the microphone would be useful, it isn't necessary for a good guess (and that it is a guess). I think most people here would say "well duhh" but try it with your relatives, see how crazy they think you are and that it has to be a microphone. There's a big disconnect, this is a problem.