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I'm curious about the privacy policies behind both engines and their development. Google's gotten an advantage in many fields by simply trampling over user's

I'm curious about the privacy policies behind both engines and their development. Google's gotten an advantage in many fields by simply trampling over user's rights. Apple has been more respectful of user rights, and that's kind of made life harder for them too.

pen2l 6y ago
Here's my controversial post of the day: I'm okay with Google trampling on my rights, in exchange for the things it gives. Personalized search results, better ad hoc translation, all of these things work well only because they have my data. And for me, I like these things enough that I'm perfectly okay with the trade.
- blinkingled 6y ago
  In this case however the transcription is done fully offline on device - that is why it is so fast. Yes Google may have trampled on your voicemail data and 411 calls to create a model that works so amazingly well across different accents and languages - but it is forgivable in this case given how good and useful it is!
- burkaman 6y ago
  > And for me The controversy is that you don't get to choose. It is extremely hard to avoid giving your data to Google if you don't want to make that trade. You can't use an Android phone, you can't use ubiquitous services like Google Search, Youtube, GMail, or Google Maps, you can't use any website without being sure to block Google Analytics, Adsense, reCaptcha, and whatever else they own. It's possible, but it's very hard, and requires constant vigilance. It is not a free choice in any meaningful sense.
- WhyNotHugo 6y ago
  > I'm okay with Google trampling on my rights, in exchange for the things it gives. That's fine, you're a consenting adult renouncing your right to privacy, and that's perfectly fine. The problem is, Google is trampling on the rights of _all_ users by default, without any consent (consent, by definition, must be an INFORMED choice).
itg 6y ago
If I recall, Apple’s speech recognition relies on their servers while Pixel is on device.
zamalek 6y ago
New Pixels (I think 3, but it may only be 4) have an inference chip of some form. All of this is done on-device. They ported this to older devices, but it's not as fast (but still offline). The assistant is one place (probably only place) where Google has a better privacy story than most (including Apple). Notwithstanding the phone offline capabilities, you can tell the home devices (which use online transcription) "that was not for you" and they will delete what they heard.
- gruez 6y ago
  >All of this is done on-device Having an on-device inference chip doesn't preclude them from sending back "telemetry" to improve their models. Unless they explicitly say that they don't send back data (or there's a toggle for that), my default assumption is that they do.
  - zamalek 6y ago
    This is definitely true, the key thing here is that they don't have to (and assistant does work outside of service). In addition, there's no guarantee that "that was not for you" will actually delete details about the last command, but Apple doesn't even attempt this. You have no idea if something Siri shouldn't have heard will end up in a training dataset (disclaimer: I'm saying this in ignorance of the Siri privacy policy).
whereistimbo 6y ago
Not necessarily user data. Google own reCAPTCHA and YouTube. Think about that.

pen2l 6y ago

Here's my controversial post of the day: I'm okay with Google trampling on my rights, in exchange for the things it gives. Personalized search results, better ad hoc translation, all of these things work well only because they have my data. And for me, I like these things enough that I'm perfectly okay with the trade.

blinkingled 6y ago
In this case however the transcription is done fully offline on device - that is why it is so fast. Yes Google may have trampled on your voicemail data and 411 calls to create a model that works so amazingly well across different accents and languages - but it is forgivable in this case given how good and useful it is!
burkaman 6y ago
> And for me The controversy is that you don't get to choose. It is extremely hard to avoid giving your data to Google if you don't want to make that trade. You can't use an Android phone, you can't use ubiquitous services like Google Search, Youtube, GMail, or Google Maps, you can't use any website without being sure to block Google Analytics, Adsense, reCaptcha, and whatever else they own. It's possible, but it's very hard, and requires constant vigilance. It is not a free choice in any meaningful sense.
WhyNotHugo 6y ago
> I'm okay with Google trampling on my rights, in exchange for the things it gives. That's fine, you're a consenting adult renouncing your right to privacy, and that's perfectly fine. The problem is, Google is trampling on the rights of _all_ users by default, without any consent (consent, by definition, must be an INFORMED choice).

itg 6y ago

If I recall, Apple’s speech recognition relies on their servers while Pixel is on device.

zamalek 6y ago

New Pixels (I think 3, but it may only be 4) have an inference chip of some form. All of this is done on-device. They ported this to older devices, but it's not as fast (but still offline). The assistant is one place (probably only place) where Google has a better privacy story than most (including Apple). Notwithstanding the phone offline capabilities, you can tell the home devices (which use online transcription) "that was not for you" and they will delete what they heard.

gruez 6y ago
>All of this is done on-device Having an on-device inference chip doesn't preclude them from sending back "telemetry" to improve their models. Unless they explicitly say that they don't send back data (or there's a toggle for that), my default assumption is that they do.
- zamalek 6y ago
  This is definitely true, the key thing here is that they don't have to (and assistant does work outside of service). In addition, there's no guarantee that "that was not for you" will actually delete details about the last command, but Apple doesn't even attempt this. You have no idea if something Siri shouldn't have heard will end up in a training dataset (disclaimer: I'm saying this in ignorance of the Siri privacy policy).

whereistimbo 6y ago

Not necessarily user data. Google own reCAPTCHA and YouTube. Think about that.