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Amazon Is Discontinuing the "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" Feature on Echo

182 points by nickthegreek 2y ago

rvz 2y ago
Unsuprising. Of course Amazon will do this. They need to. Just another reminder that *any* company marketing about "privacy" in their product keynotes will always do the exact opposite. Best example of this was Mozilla. Preaching "privacyin Firefox browser and now is deploying ad-tracking into their browser (after acquiring Anonym that sells your data to advertisers "privately").
- rohan_ 2y ago
  do you think it's feasible to create a Gen AI version of Alexa completely locally? unsure what exactly you're trying to say.
  - KetoManx64 2y ago
    HomeAssistant already does
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      Hmm yeah but it needs 30 seconds to give an answer. And that's with the LLM running on a GPU with HBM2 memory.
  - bttrpll 2y ago
    yes. that was the original design actually. and it worked. latency was a bit much though.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    It's not "Gen"erative, but is still a Transformer, and is kinda OK: https://github.com/openai/whisper https://github.com/openai/whisper (I'm not too impressed with the error rate, but OTOH Alexa and Siri mishear me fairly often as well, so Whisper may be "good enough").
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    its feasible. if you want to try yourself you can start with the april-asr package.
  - cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
    There are tools to make your own.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43367536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43367536
BoredPositron 2y ago
I deleted my Amazon account some time ago. It seems that with subsequent updates, they must have reactivated recording by default again. I discovered 2.8 GB of voice recordings, and creepily, not all of them were initiated by the designated trigger word. However, with the provided command detected JSON, you can analyze the recordings to identify words you may be mispronouncing.
wkat4242 2y ago
Huh I didn't know that existed. So I could have used Alexa all this time. But now it's going away anyway...
- netbioserror 2y ago
  And we definitely know it did exactly what it says...
bentt 2y ago
So on one hand, sure, Amazon isn't trustworthy. On the other hand, the big question with Echo/Alexa has always been "is it listening to me all the time?". My understanding is that people have snooped the devices and they appeared to only send data when the wake word was used. Now... does that mean they are not recording all the time and only sending data during the wake word window? I do not know. However the above point is different. I honestly didn't think that they were generating the text on device to this point, so this is news that they ever WEREN'T sending voice to the cloud. However, I think a lot of people are going to get these two things confused and basically nope out of the Alexa ecosystem.
teeray 2y ago
How is the open-source voice assistant space these days? Is there a self-hosted alternative to Alexa these days?
- thebestmoshe 2y ago
  Home Assistant is working on one https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/ https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/
- horsawlarway 2y ago
  Yes. I use https://heywillow.io/ https://heywillow.io/ and nothing ever leaves my LAN. It's entirely open, and relatively hackable - but also a pain to configure and requires 1 machine with a GPU (several years old is fine, I'm running mine on a nearly decade old Nvidia GTX 1080) and a couple satellite ESP32 devices (Espressif ESP32-S3-BOX-3). Home Assistant is also doing a more integrated version, but last I looked it was still "cloud-only" which defeats the purpose for me, since I was interested from a privacy standpoint. It does look like they finally released a local preview (at least for some languages) but I haven't yet tried them. By default, it still looks like they're using Google for TTS, which is a hard "NO!" from me. I've been pretty disappointed that they really seem to want to drive monetization with their voice features, and force people into the HA cloud services, but again - I haven't tried the latest release so take my frustrating with a grain of salt. They made a lot of noise in early 2023, and late last year still only supported cloud options... I was annoyed.
sorokod 2y ago
truly curious what sort of cost benefit analysis results in: I am comfortable with inviting a rapacious corporation into my private life.
- immibis 2y ago
  "I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear." Or "I don't know any better"
- tdiff 2y ago
  Im getting old and find all features provided by voice assistants very much unnecessary, but perhaps younger generations cannot live without it?
  - sorokod 2y ago
    Those features did not exist say a decade ago, so cannot live without is likely to be a dramatisation of a minor inconvenience.
- horsawlarway 2y ago
  It's sort of a shame the industry is in the state it's in, because I personally know a couple of folks who have disabilities that make something like an Echo truly a godsend. There are a lot of things that get much, much easier from an accessibility standpoint if someone can operate a device by voice, instead of having to maneuver next to a switch, panel, or button. Getting next to the button can be much more difficult if it means getting into a wheelchair, fitting your prosthetic, or having to find help because it's positioned too high or in an area that's too narrow. Additionally, you can say a single phrase and turn off all lights in your dwelling, regardless of room. Minor win for able-bodied folks who might take only a minute or two to walk the house, big win for someone less capable. --- I'm technically capable enough to have removed Amazon/Google anyways with HomeAssistant in combination with WIS (https://github.com/toverainc/willow-inference-server https://github.com/toverainc/willow-inference-server) and Willow autocorrect (https://github.com/toverainc/willow-autocorrect https://github.com/toverainc/willow-autocorrect). Which gets me most of the things I cared about from an Echo without ever having anything leave my LAN. But it's a real PITA the setup. There is basically zero middleground in this industry between "Amazon/Google have a permanent microphone that listens to everything you do" and "You have to manually flash ESP32s and configure servers".

182 points by nickthegreek 2y ago

rvz 2y ago

Unsuprising. Of course Amazon will do this. They need to. Just another reminder that *any* company marketing about "privacy" in their product keynotes will always do the exact opposite. Best example of this was Mozilla. Preaching "privacyin Firefox browser and now is deploying ad-tracking into their browser (after acquiring Anonym that sells your data to advertisers "privately").

rohan_ 2y ago
do you think it's feasible to create a Gen AI version of Alexa completely locally? unsure what exactly you're trying to say.
- KetoManx64 2y ago
  HomeAssistant already does
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Hmm yeah but it needs 30 seconds to give an answer. And that's with the LLM running on a GPU with HBM2 memory.
- bttrpll 2y ago
  yes. that was the original design actually. and it worked. latency was a bit much though.
- ben_w 2y ago
  It's not "Gen"erative, but is still a Transformer, and is kinda OK: https://github.com/openai/whisper https://github.com/openai/whisper (I'm not too impressed with the error rate, but OTOH Alexa and Siri mishear me fairly often as well, so Whisper may be "good enough").
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  its feasible. if you want to try yourself you can start with the april-asr package.
- cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
  There are tools to make your own.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43367536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43367536

BoredPositron 2y ago

I deleted my Amazon account some time ago. It seems that with subsequent updates, they must have reactivated recording by default again. I discovered 2.8 GB of voice recordings, and creepily, not all of them were initiated by the designated trigger word. However, with the provided command detected JSON, you can analyze the recordings to identify words you may be mispronouncing.

wkat4242 2y ago

Huh I didn't know that existed. So I could have used Alexa all this time. But now it's going away anyway...

netbioserror 2y ago
And we definitely know it did exactly what it says...

bentt 2y ago

So on one hand, sure, Amazon isn't trustworthy. On the other hand, the big question with Echo/Alexa has always been "is it listening to me all the time?". My understanding is that people have snooped the devices and they appeared to only send data when the wake word was used. Now... does that mean they are not recording all the time and only sending data during the wake word window? I do not know. However the above point is different. I honestly didn't think that they were generating the text on device to this point, so this is news that they ever WEREN'T sending voice to the cloud. However, I think a lot of people are going to get these two things confused and basically nope out of the Alexa ecosystem.

teeray 2y ago

How is the open-source voice assistant space these days? Is there a self-hosted alternative to Alexa these days?

thebestmoshe 2y ago
Home Assistant is working on one https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/ https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/
horsawlarway 2y ago
Yes. I use https://heywillow.io/ https://heywillow.io/ and nothing ever leaves my LAN. It's entirely open, and relatively hackable - but also a pain to configure and requires 1 machine with a GPU (several years old is fine, I'm running mine on a nearly decade old Nvidia GTX 1080) and a couple satellite ESP32 devices (Espressif ESP32-S3-BOX-3). Home Assistant is also doing a more integrated version, but last I looked it was still "cloud-only" which defeats the purpose for me, since I was interested from a privacy standpoint. It does look like they finally released a local preview (at least for some languages) but I haven't yet tried them. By default, it still looks like they're using Google for TTS, which is a hard "NO!" from me. I've been pretty disappointed that they really seem to want to drive monetization with their voice features, and force people into the HA cloud services, but again - I haven't tried the latest release so take my frustrating with a grain of salt. They made a lot of noise in early 2023, and late last year still only supported cloud options... I was annoyed.

sorokod 2y ago

truly curious what sort of cost benefit analysis results in: I am comfortable with inviting a rapacious corporation into my private life.

immibis 2y ago
"I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear." Or "I don't know any better"
tdiff 2y ago
Im getting old and find all features provided by voice assistants very much unnecessary, but perhaps younger generations cannot live without it?
- sorokod 2y ago
  Those features did not exist say a decade ago, so cannot live without is likely to be a dramatisation of a minor inconvenience.
horsawlarway 2y ago
It's sort of a shame the industry is in the state it's in, because I personally know a couple of folks who have disabilities that make something like an Echo truly a godsend. There are a lot of things that get much, much easier from an accessibility standpoint if someone can operate a device by voice, instead of having to maneuver next to a switch, panel, or button. Getting next to the button can be much more difficult if it means getting into a wheelchair, fitting your prosthetic, or having to find help because it's positioned too high or in an area that's too narrow. Additionally, you can say a single phrase and turn off all lights in your dwelling, regardless of room. Minor win for able-bodied folks who might take only a minute or two to walk the house, big win for someone less capable. --- I'm technically capable enough to have removed Amazon/Google anyways with HomeAssistant in combination with WIS (https://github.com/toverainc/willow-inference-server https://github.com/toverainc/willow-inference-server) and Willow autocorrect (https://github.com/toverainc/willow-autocorrect https://github.com/toverainc/willow-autocorrect). Which gets me most of the things I cared about from an Echo without ever having anything leave my LAN. But it's a real PITA the setup. There is basically zero middleground in this industry between "Amazon/Google have a permanent microphone that listens to everything you do" and "You have to manually flash ESP32s and configure servers".