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> The remainder of his post explains why such an individual solution isn't enough: it doesn't stop society as a whole slipping further into total surveillance,

> The remainder of his post explains why such an individual solution isn't enough: it doesn't stop society as a whole slipping further into total surveillance, until eventually it swallows you as well. Either compelled by law, or non-negotiable contract, or by a large fraction of your friends owning surveillance devices, catching you in their crossfire. I can't prove this, but I'm convinced that there's a bunch of people in this culture who want surveillance and invasion of privacy. There's too many instances of people buying into BS like internet connected wearables or Alexa. All of the reasons people give for buying these products is marginal. What problem does Alexa solve that your phone or computer can't? And why is it necessary to give a device the privilege to have a microphone on 24/7 to solve it?

jefftk 4y ago
> What problem does Alexa solve that your phone or computer can't? And why is it necessary to give a device the privilege to have a microphone on 24/7 to solve it? Note that your phone also defaults to having its microphone on 24/7. The problem that this solves, for people that use it, is that it removes a lot of friction from computer interaction. "[Hey Siri / Ok Google / Alexa] set a timer for twenty minutes" takes much less time and effort, and even works with messy hands when you're cooking.
- cr4nberry 4y ago
  > Note that your phone also defaults to having its microphone on 24/7 There's a difference between it being on vs having a task that's actively listening for trigger words. Idk if Google/Apple put some kind of latent thing in their phone OS that's constantly listening for advertising or intelligence purposes. I'm assuming this is what you're talking about, since the microphone permission flag for applications on the phone OS can be easily disabled
  - jefftk 4y ago
    The reason I brought up Siri and Ok Google is that they're doing the same thing as Alexa with their always-on microphones: they're trying to detect a "wake word" ("Alexa", "Hey Siri", "Ok Google"), and once they do they take the recent audio and parse it for commands.

jefftk 4y ago

> What problem does Alexa solve that your phone or computer can't? And why is it necessary to give a device the privilege to have a microphone on 24/7 to solve it? Note that your phone also defaults to having its microphone on 24/7. The problem that this solves, for people that use it, is that it removes a lot of friction from computer interaction. "[Hey Siri / Ok Google / Alexa] set a timer for twenty minutes" takes much less time and effort, and even works with messy hands when you're cooking.

cr4nberry 4y ago
> Note that your phone also defaults to having its microphone on 24/7 There's a difference between it being on vs having a task that's actively listening for trigger words. Idk if Google/Apple put some kind of latent thing in their phone OS that's constantly listening for advertising or intelligence purposes. I'm assuming this is what you're talking about, since the microphone permission flag for applications on the phone OS can be easily disabled
- jefftk 4y ago
  The reason I brought up Siri and Ok Google is that they're doing the same thing as Alexa with their always-on microphones: they're trying to detect a "wake word" ("Alexa", "Hey Siri", "Ok Google"), and once they do they take the recent audio and parse it for commands.