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Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

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Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#81

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #73
tetris11 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. It's bad enough sometimes that you go to friends house and have an Alexa responding to every half word. Now we have to put up with this? For what actual gain? What percentage of a normal friendly conversation is something you want to actually review and document. Less than 5%?

As someone who is not neurotypical I actually could really use something like this due to memory issues associated with my diagnosis. Especially professionally.

Your comment made me think about it differently, thanks.

We don't need to jam these adversarially, we need a wireless protocol that enables polite behavior. Imagine if you were walking around broadcasting "I'm recording" and you run across somebody broadcasting "please don't record". The devices could prompt a conversation between humans.

Changing the dynamic to one that's resolved initially (rather than later, when somebody's upset because they didn't know they were being recorded) would be a significant shift I think.

Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#82

Post by vunderba »

elric wrote: post #58
Legend2440 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

38 states agree with you and allow you to record any conversation you're a part of. 12 states, including california, disagree.

Also illegal in Belgium, and presumably many other European countries, without prior notification. Spying on people is not cool.

"Spying on people is not cool"

I don't particularly like this device mainly due because of the cloud related vulnerabilities - if it used all off-line models, I wouldn't be nearly as opposed to it.

On the other hand, let's not be deliberately disingenuous.

The goal of this device is to record conversations that you're part of, which one would hardly call "spying" in any conventional sense. That's why one-party recordings are legal in many states.

Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#83

Post by shagie »

CTDOCodebases wrote: post #62
shagie wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voice assistants have a wake word. There is low power circuitry that is running locally listening for a specific series of syllables and a buffer of a second or two of audio. Once that wake word circuit detects that series of syllables, then it activates the rest of the device and starts streaming the buffer and current audio into whatever systems it has for transcription (or cloud). In many cases, this happens local…

Thanks for the detailed reply. I guess if it a device is transcribing audio data from a buffer it’s not the same as a recording. Still I remember Apple was using some humans to review recordings: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-10-29...

I was pointing out that walking around with a voice assistant is not walking around with an open microphone recording everything.

For many applications with the iPhone, the transcription is done locally.

If you have an iPhone, turn on airplane made and switch on dictation mode.

   I need to go to the store and get a two by four
   I am five foot ten inches tall
You'll note that it does a fairly good form of transcription on device (you can still trick it with some ambiguous homophones).

I will also point out that Apple is using an opt-in process rather than opt-out. The article you linked is from October 29th, 2019. iOS 13.2 was released October 28th. It is possible that the release and saying that it is opt in ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/118392 ) "Privacy settings to control whether or not to help improve Siri and Dictation by allowing Apple to store audio of your Siri and Dictation interactions" is what triggered the article (the change prompted the article rather than the article prompting the change).

https://foundation.mozilla.org/es/privacynotincluded/article...

And from the about security settings:

    If you opt in to Improve Siri and Dictation, the audio of your interactions with Siri and Dictation may be stored on Siri servers and reviewed by Apple employees to develop and improve Siri, Dictation, and natural language processing functionality in Apple products and services. For general text Dictation performed on device (for example, composing messages and notes, but not dictating in a search box), transcripts and audio are not shared with Apple by default, but are shared if you opt in to Improve Siri and Dictation. In addition, other Siri Data, such as computer-generated transcriptions of your requests, names of your contacts, apps installed on your devices, and location, is also used to improve Siri.
This is fundamentally different than having an open microphone during a conversation that is transcribing the entire conversation and then using that to summarize it.

Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#84

Post by natpalmer1776 »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #81
Forgeties79 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is not neurotypical I actually could really use something like this due to memory issues associated with my diagnosis. Especially professionally.

Your comment made me think about it differently, thanks. We don't need to jam these adversarially, we need a wireless protocol that enables polite behavior. Imagine if you were walking around broadcasting "I'm recording" and you run across somebody broadcasting "please don't record". The devices could prompt a conversation between humans. Changing the dynamic to one that's resolved initially (rather than later, when…

Except this "problem" has already been resolved (in the US) at a legal level; Look up your states stance on one-party vs. two-party consent for recording private conversations.

The majority (39/50) of states only require the consent of a single party to record a conversation. If you want to take issue with other people recording conversations they have with you, that is something you should take up with your state's legislature.

Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#85

Post by rsynnott »

tzm wrote: post #39

Genuinely curious if people think this is a product, solving a real problem? My mind goes to critical privacy rights and would likely require offline use?

It seems like an ideal way to get shunned from society.

I’d also wonder about the legal situation; lots of places have laws against the covert recording of phone conversations, but I’m less sure about in-person private conversations.

Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#86

Post by krageon »

tzm wrote: post #39

Genuinely curious if people think this is a product, solving a real problem? My mind goes to critical privacy rights and would likely require offline use?

If you won't remember important conversations correctly (which you will not, given that your memory is garbage), or you can't distinguish words very well it is very useless to have a fallback recording and a transcript. For people who are generally hard of hearing it's also very useful.

I guess if you're very good at remembering things and have no disabilities, the use-cases are only bad. That said, we shouldn't let assholes fuck things up.

Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#87

Post by RockRobotRock »

explorigin wrote: post #70
WhitneyLand wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about an autistic person if they could use it for real-time high level cues on the primary emotion being conveyed? When my son was growing up there were times I wish he didn’t have to struggle or guess as much.

This! LLMs have a lot of potential to fill the "support person" role for high-functioning autistics.

Healthcare is giving autistic people GPU credits every month

Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#88

Post by rapjr9 »

mrinfinitiesx wrote: post #48

The intentions seem genuine, and the ideas are good for what you would want people to use it for, but what about people like me? Recording data on and around you especially without their consent is not something I'm okay with. I'm against Windows adding in their 'Recall' feature highly, I don't want somebody's computer taking screenshots and transcribing my encrypted chats on all of their computer usage, I sure as he…

Something like this might work:

"Virtual Walls: Protecting Digital Privacy in Pervasive Environments"

https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~kotz/research/kapadia-walls/in...

Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#89

Post by Forgeties79 »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #81
Forgeties79 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is not neurotypical I actually could really use something like this due to memory issues associated with my diagnosis. Especially professionally.

Your comment made me think about it differently, thanks. We don't need to jam these adversarially, we need a wireless protocol that enables polite behavior. Imagine if you were walking around broadcasting "I'm recording" and you run across somebody broadcasting "please don't record". The devices could prompt a conversation between humans. Changing the dynamic to one that's resolved initially (rather than later, when…

I think that proposal is totally fair, and don’t worry I wasn’t trying to challenge you or something. Just wanted to offer another perspective!

Re: Show HN: Omi – Open-source AI wearable for capturing conversations

#90

Post by elric »

vunderba wrote: post #82
elric wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also illegal in Belgium, and presumably many other European countries, without prior notification. Spying on people is not cool.

"Spying on people is not cool" I don't particularly like this device mainly due because of the cloud related vulnerabilities - if it used all off-line models, I wouldn't be nearly as opposed to it. On the other hand, let's not be deliberately disingenuous. The goal of this device is to record conversations that you're part of , which one would hardly call "spying" in any conventional sense. That's why one-party recor…

If you're part of a conversation, and want to capture part of it, is it really that hard to ask the other parties whether they're cool with it? If you don't, you're effectively spying on them, regardless of how much you sugarcoat it or whatever some states consider to be legal.
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