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> What part of the paper gives you the impression they imply voice assistants are listening to everything? For me, it's this: "Your Echos are Heard" So, the o

> What part of the paper gives you the impression they imply voice assistants are listening to everything? For me, it's this: "Your Echos are Heard" So, the opening salvo. That's what gives me the impression they imply voice assistances are listening to everything. I don't refer to voice commands or normal interaction as "echos" so the user of the word "echos" here implies something nefarious. Sure, it's the name of the product, but for me, it reads like something more.

samhw 5y ago
- oehpr 5y ago
  Wu.. WOW That was a hostile response for what seemed like a reasonable position. Tell me samhw: If I told you I had a bunch of echos in my garage. Would you be wondering why I just said "I have a bunch of voice commands issued to my echo in my garage"? No. You would not. It's not an unreasonable position So tell me why it deserved that response.
  - samhw 5y ago
    Sorry, I don't mean to be overly harsh, but your comment amounts to > I personally don't use the word 'echo' in connection to vocal communication, which (for some incomprehensible reason) means that, when someone else uses the word 'echo' thusly, they are implying something nefarious. > Oh, and not just something nefarious, but specifically that they are eavesdropping on every word you say (also: every breath you take, every move you make, &c). Somehow. > In summation: they are spying on everything you say, because they used the word 'echo' in their marketing material about a voice assistant. QED. I mean, this is barely even intelligible as a line of reasoning. I assumed it was dashed off quickly and without really thinking. If it represents your considered opinion, then perhaps I'm missing something very obvious, I don't know.
    - jldugger 5y ago
      > this is barely even intelligible as a line of reasoning. You are literally engaging in a straw-man argument. Nobody said any of those things verbatim, no matter how much you wish they had. This is bad-faith commenting and you should consider taking a break to de-escalate. > perhaps I'm missing something very obvious The title "Your Echos are Heard" is a pun. One meaning of "Echos" is the Amazon product, and the other is a vocalization reflected back. It's stretch, to the point where it's technically spelled wrong for one of the meanings of the word. But it's a pun re-enforced with the word "heard" and thats enough for people to make the connection. The complaint is that the article title heavily _implies_ the study finds devices are listening to your conversations unprompted, without actually doing any such science. The clickbait title is bad enough, but when there's already a partisan comment brigade ready to claim that "science is on their side" it's definitely worse.
      - samhw 5y ago
        > Nobody said any of those things verbatim, no matter how much you wish they had. No, of course I'm paraphrasing. I hoped I had made it sufficiently comically obvious that no non-brain-damaged reader would ever believe I was representing that as a quotation, or even an unembellished paraphrase. > The complaint is that the article title heavily _implies_ the study finds devices are listening to your conversations unprompted I don't think anything implies 'unprompted' rather than 'prompted', and many people in this thread appear equally confused by that inference. I am in complete incomprehension of how "Your Echos Are Heard" suggests that the smart speaker is specifically listening to your unprompted speech.
        jldugger 5y ago
        > I don't think anything implies 'unprompted' rather than 'prompted' > I am in complete incomprehension of how "Your Echos Are Heard" suggests that the smart speaker is specifically listening to your unprompted speech. 1. Wake word systems are by design, always on, always listening. At one level, the speaker _is_ listening to unprompted speech. 2. Those systems are imperfect. Pretty much everyone I know can describe at least one occasion on which a voice assistant accidentally triggered, and I have personally witnessed Siri transcribe the words said _before_ "Hey Siri." 3. There's an urban legend that FB or Amazon are, without any prompting, listening in on conversations, and using that to improve user profiles. Moreover we've seen several stories on HN lately about Zoom still sending data when the user has clicked mute, so people are more likely to make that connection. 4. Even the abstract uses the phrase "egregious privacy breaches" and doesn't provide sufficient clarity to distinguish between prompted and unprompted listening. The title is ambiguous in a way that requires you to read the article to know whether this applies to unprompted or not -- both are equally supported conclusions IMO. And that same ambiguity lets anyone project their biases onto the article, retweet / repost / share, and demand. People are jumping to conclusions, certainly, but ambiguity interacts with "fast" social media in the form of people reading only the headlines before commenting.
- jldugger 5y ago
  Is there a name for when people giving advice fail to heed their own warning? Perhaps a humorously long german word.
  - samhw 5y ago
    Irony? ;)

samhw 5y ago

oehpr 5y ago
Wu.. WOW That was a hostile response for what seemed like a reasonable position. Tell me samhw: If I told you I had a bunch of echos in my garage. Would you be wondering why I just said "I have a bunch of voice commands issued to my echo in my garage"? No. You would not. It's not an unreasonable position So tell me why it deserved that response.
- samhw 5y ago
  Sorry, I don't mean to be overly harsh, but your comment amounts to > I personally don't use the word 'echo' in connection to vocal communication, which (for some incomprehensible reason) means that, when someone else uses the word 'echo' thusly, they are implying something nefarious. > Oh, and not just something nefarious, but specifically that they are eavesdropping on every word you say (also: every breath you take, every move you make, &c). Somehow. > In summation: they are spying on everything you say, because they used the word 'echo' in their marketing material about a voice assistant. QED. I mean, this is barely even intelligible as a line of reasoning. I assumed it was dashed off quickly and without really thinking. If it represents your considered opinion, then perhaps I'm missing something very obvious, I don't know.
  - jldugger 5y ago
    > this is barely even intelligible as a line of reasoning. You are literally engaging in a straw-man argument. Nobody said any of those things verbatim, no matter how much you wish they had. This is bad-faith commenting and you should consider taking a break to de-escalate. > perhaps I'm missing something very obvious The title "Your Echos are Heard" is a pun. One meaning of "Echos" is the Amazon product, and the other is a vocalization reflected back. It's stretch, to the point where it's technically spelled wrong for one of the meanings of the word. But it's a pun re-enforced with the word "heard" and thats enough for people to make the connection. The complaint is that the article title heavily _implies_ the study finds devices are listening to your conversations unprompted, without actually doing any such science. The clickbait title is bad enough, but when there's already a partisan comment brigade ready to claim that "science is on their side" it's definitely worse.
    - samhw 5y ago
      > Nobody said any of those things verbatim, no matter how much you wish they had. No, of course I'm paraphrasing. I hoped I had made it sufficiently comically obvious that no non-brain-damaged reader would ever believe I was representing that as a quotation, or even an unembellished paraphrase. > The complaint is that the article title heavily _implies_ the study finds devices are listening to your conversations unprompted I don't think anything implies 'unprompted' rather than 'prompted', and many people in this thread appear equally confused by that inference. I am in complete incomprehension of how "Your Echos Are Heard" suggests that the smart speaker is specifically listening to your unprompted speech.
      - jldugger 5y ago
        > I don't think anything implies 'unprompted' rather than 'prompted' > I am in complete incomprehension of how "Your Echos Are Heard" suggests that the smart speaker is specifically listening to your unprompted speech. 1. Wake word systems are by design, always on, always listening. At one level, the speaker _is_ listening to unprompted speech. 2. Those systems are imperfect. Pretty much everyone I know can describe at least one occasion on which a voice assistant accidentally triggered, and I have personally witnessed Siri transcribe the words said _before_ "Hey Siri." 3. There's an urban legend that FB or Amazon are, without any prompting, listening in on conversations, and using that to improve user profiles. Moreover we've seen several stories on HN lately about Zoom still sending data when the user has clicked mute, so people are more likely to make that connection. 4. Even the abstract uses the phrase "egregious privacy breaches" and doesn't provide sufficient clarity to distinguish between prompted and unprompted listening. The title is ambiguous in a way that requires you to read the article to know whether this applies to unprompted or not -- both are equally supported conclusions IMO. And that same ambiguity lets anyone project their biases onto the article, retweet / repost / share, and demand. People are jumping to conclusions, certainly, but ambiguity interacts with "fast" social media in the form of people reading only the headlines before commenting.
jldugger 5y ago
Is there a name for when people giving advice fail to heed their own warning? Perhaps a humorously long german word.
- samhw 5y ago
  Irony? ;)