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There has always been the myth/rumor/belief that our devices are always listening. I wonder if this is an overton window moment, get people used to a device act

There has always been the myth/rumor/belief that our devices are always listening. I wonder if this is an overton window moment, get people used to a device actually listening and slowly move to all devices listening.

bensyverson 24d ago
Our devices are always listening, if you have them set up to listen for hail words like "Siri" or "Hey Google," so I think the Overton window on listening already shifted about 10 years ago. The device actually recording/transcribing what it hears is newer, but you're right that it's becoming more and more normalized. With Granola, I think most people assume that any video call is being transcribed, even if there's no indication in the meeting. Whatever side you come down on, privacy doesn't stand a chance against a small amount of convenience.
- RASBR89 24d ago
  It depends what you mean by ‘listening’. If you look at how this actually works - it’s basically only ever looking for a certain waveform ‘Listening’ sort of implies intelligence is paying attention to what is said. It’s more ‘hearing’ than ‘listening’ There are documents on how these activation words work
  - prophesi 24d ago
    To look for a certain waveform, wouldn't you need to obtain all of the mic data at all times? I think that's what's implied by "listening" here, but semantics are rarely an interesting discussion.
    - zamadatix 24d ago
      Yeah, I can see maaaany layers to have to differentiate between when discussing. E.g., for just a few random examples: - The microphone always vibrates from the sound waves - The microphone is powered in a way that the sound waves change electrical readings in some way - The electrical readings are sent to another component reading them - A component receiving the data does some kind of unbuffered processing related to triggered actions (e.g. a clapper or a activation wave) - Some component temporarily uses a buffer of the data but not for permanent storage (e.g. live, unstored transcription for the deaf or a 'nevermind' after a triggered activation) - Some component stores or sends data generated by the sound, but not necessarily the original audio or even any attributions of who (e.g. voice trigger web search sends the search query as text) - Some component generates a stored copy of the transcription with attribution of who - Some component stores the actual audio in a way that can be later replayed I'd say this "sounds" like a mess to deal with, but then I'd be worried about falling into a category ;).
    - theshrike79 23d ago
      A Clapper[0] from the 80s "looked for a certain waveform", but definitely didn't "listen". What the smart speakers and devices do with the keyword is closer to the clapper than an actual transcription. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapper
micromacrofoot 24d ago
The myth is that the devices are streaming audio back to be ingested into ad/recommendation algorithms, which is testable and generally not true. I really wish these conversations would shift to the scarier truth: companies collect so much metadata on everyone that they can make pretty good guesses without processing what you're saying. If you think "oh hey I was just talking about socks, how did they know to show me an ad for socks" it's likely because they accurately predicted based on your behaviors that you are highly likely to be in the market for socks right now.
- bflesch 24d ago
  Facebook/Google have a history of abusing hidden iOS APIs and exploiting weaknesses in the app isolation. It's plausible they found a way to read the output stream of the text-to-speech module from their apps, until Apple was forced to fix it. None of the companies would have an incentive to report it.
- sandcat_ 24d ago
  > If you think "oh hey I was just talking about socks, how did they know to show me an ad for socks" Or you’re talking about socks because of the previous ad for socks you saw. I suspect ads drive our collective behaviour more than we realize.
  - micromacrofoot 24d ago
    Or you were at a friends house and they googled socks yesterday I'm not kidding about how insidious this is... there's so much metadata to exploit that these companies know who you're with, when you're with them, how often you're there, etc they don't even need to explicitly ask for location because they can pick it up based on network info. In some cases they probably could tell you more about a person than that person could tell you themselves.
- socalgal2 24d ago
  genearlly not true except LG just got caught making it true
bflesch 24d ago
Imagine you work in a three letter agency and discover that a certain guy has a vital role in an issue you are investigating. You don't want to just bug his iPhone from now on, you want to know everything he said over the past two years when around his iPhone. The tech is already included in the iPhone, and storage requirements are in the hundreds of Megabytes, not more. The device is a black box on purpose, and my informed opinion is that they have been logging the ambient text-to-speech since a long time.

bensyverson 24d ago

Our devices are always listening, if you have them set up to listen for hail words like "Siri" or "Hey Google," so I think the Overton window on listening already shifted about 10 years ago. The device actually recording/transcribing what it hears is newer, but you're right that it's becoming more and more normalized. With Granola, I think most people assume that any video call is being transcribed, even if there's no indication in the meeting. Whatever side you come down on, privacy doesn't stand a chance against a small amount of convenience.

RASBR89 24d ago
It depends what you mean by ‘listening’. If you look at how this actually works - it’s basically only ever looking for a certain waveform ‘Listening’ sort of implies intelligence is paying attention to what is said. It’s more ‘hearing’ than ‘listening’ There are documents on how these activation words work
- prophesi 24d ago
  To look for a certain waveform, wouldn't you need to obtain all of the mic data at all times? I think that's what's implied by "listening" here, but semantics are rarely an interesting discussion.
  - zamadatix 24d ago
    Yeah, I can see maaaany layers to have to differentiate between when discussing. E.g., for just a few random examples: - The microphone always vibrates from the sound waves - The microphone is powered in a way that the sound waves change electrical readings in some way - The electrical readings are sent to another component reading them - A component receiving the data does some kind of unbuffered processing related to triggered actions (e.g. a clapper or a activation wave) - Some component temporarily uses a buffer of the data but not for permanent storage (e.g. live, unstored transcription for the deaf or a 'nevermind' after a triggered activation) - Some component stores or sends data generated by the sound, but not necessarily the original audio or even any attributions of who (e.g. voice trigger web search sends the search query as text) - Some component generates a stored copy of the transcription with attribution of who - Some component stores the actual audio in a way that can be later replayed I'd say this "sounds" like a mess to deal with, but then I'd be worried about falling into a category ;).
  - theshrike79 23d ago
    A Clapper[0] from the 80s "looked for a certain waveform", but definitely didn't "listen". What the smart speakers and devices do with the keyword is closer to the clapper than an actual transcription. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapper

micromacrofoot 24d ago

The myth is that the devices are streaming audio back to be ingested into ad/recommendation algorithms, which is testable and generally not true. I really wish these conversations would shift to the scarier truth: companies collect so much metadata on everyone that they can make pretty good guesses without processing what you're saying. If you think "oh hey I was just talking about socks, how did they know to show me an ad for socks" it's likely because they accurately predicted based on your behaviors that you are highly likely to be in the market for socks right now.

bflesch 24d ago
Facebook/Google have a history of abusing hidden iOS APIs and exploiting weaknesses in the app isolation. It's plausible they found a way to read the output stream of the text-to-speech module from their apps, until Apple was forced to fix it. None of the companies would have an incentive to report it.
sandcat_ 24d ago
> If you think "oh hey I was just talking about socks, how did they know to show me an ad for socks" Or you’re talking about socks because of the previous ad for socks you saw. I suspect ads drive our collective behaviour more than we realize.
- micromacrofoot 24d ago
  Or you were at a friends house and they googled socks yesterday I'm not kidding about how insidious this is... there's so much metadata to exploit that these companies know who you're with, when you're with them, how often you're there, etc they don't even need to explicitly ask for location because they can pick it up based on network info. In some cases they probably could tell you more about a person than that person could tell you themselves.
socalgal2 24d ago
genearlly not true except LG just got caught making it true

bflesch 24d ago

Imagine you work in a three letter agency and discover that a certain guy has a vital role in an issue you are investigating. You don't want to just bug his iPhone from now on, you want to know everything he said over the past two years when around his iPhone. The tech is already included in the iPhone, and storage requirements are in the hundreds of Megabytes, not more. The device is a black box on purpose, and my informed opinion is that they have been logging the ambient text-to-speech since a long time.