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Amazon can't yet completely delete Alexa voice transcriptions

zdnet.com

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Re: Amazon can't yet completely delete Alexa voice transcriptions

#51

Post by c0vfefe »

JadeNB wrote: post #44
gvand wrote: post #5

Thanks to the sacrifice of these clueless users (or at least a good part of them are) the era of offline assistants is near looking at what Google has shown recently.

> Thanks to the sacrifice of these clueless users (or at least a good part of them are) the era of offline assistants is near looking at what Google has shown recently. I think I'm being clueless, but I can't figure out what this sentence means. Is there a typo in it?

I think gvand means that these users are training the AI models to eventually provide a similar level of service offline. The "cluelessness" is just a value judgment of the users.

Re: Amazon can't yet completely delete Alexa voice transcriptions

#52

Post by not_a_cop75 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #18
ravenstine wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gimmicks are short-lived for fundamental reasons. I'm going to sound like a broken record but, as someone who has owned multiple Alexa devices and quit their job to start a voice-UI business(didn't pan out), the current generation of "smart speakers" are a joke when it comes to doing anything serious besides asking for the weather or toggling light switches. I have no doubt that they are useful to people in very limi…

"Besides [a bunch of useful stuff], Alexa is useless! Therefore it's a gimmick." I have an Echo Dot which I use almost exclusively for a few static purposes: the weather, setting alarms, turning my lights on and off, and asking what time it is. I also ask it basic questions like whether various sports teams won or what time they're playing, which it also answers well. Not sure why you think it is useless just because…

Call me crazy but, but paying 30 dollars to lose all of my privacy just so I don't have to get up to turn off the light at night seems like a poor trade. Maybe not useless, but I honestly think you can do better.

And a basic raspberry pi could be programmed to cycle through the weather, alarms, lights, time. I guess the crux of doing it that way however, is taking personal responsibility for security, which still seems better if you're slightly lax at it, than sharing your "house microphone" with a multi-billion dollar company with motivation to exploit it.

Re: Amazon can't yet completely delete Alexa voice transcriptions

#53

Post by secabeen »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #49
Karunamon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

an always-on microphone sending data to the cloud. This is a dishonest characterization of how every smart speaker in existence works. There is no continuous stream as this statement implies. There is a continuous buffer of a couple of seconds for the device to locally catch a wake word. (You can verify this by disabling the device's internet connectivity - it will still catch the wake word and speak an apologetic me…

> [description how Alexa works] Citation needed. I don't think the actual process is publicly available (though I may be wrong). Call me too cynical, but given the bugs that happened to both Google and Amazon, and that the law can force compel companies to do things with leased hardware they ordinarily wouldn't, I don't really trust it. > The "user hostility" and "gimmick"-ness of this design is entirely subjective a…

> Citation needed. I don't think the actual process is publicly available (though I may be wrong). Call me too cynical, but given the bugs that happened to both Google and Amazon, and that the law can force compel companies to do things with leased hardware they ordinarily wouldn't, I don't really trust it.

I don't think you need a citation here. The network traffic is not sufficient to send always-on audio and the power consumption is not sufficient to do always-on speech-to-text or other similar analysis.

Re: Amazon can't yet completely delete Alexa voice transcriptions

#55

Post by NullPrefix »

jtdev wrote: post #6

I can’t believe that people actually pay for these things... Alexa has always seemed like a gimmick to me. I have an Ecobee smart thermostat that has integrated Alexa, which I promptly disabled after installation.

It's similar to mobility scooters. Made for handicapped, but also popular among the lazy.

Re: Amazon can't yet completely delete Alexa voice transcriptions

#56

Post by secabeen »

pushpop wrote: post #29
School-Cotton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Besides [a bunch of useful stuff], Alexa is useless! Therefore it's a gimmick." I have an Echo Dot which I use almost exclusively for a few static purposes: the weather, setting alarms, turning my lights on and off, and asking what time it is. I also ask it basic questions like whether various sports teams won or what time they're playing, which it also answers well. Not sure why you think it is useless just because…

I fairness to your bed time reading example, it’s very common for people to have bed side lights - even if they’re just little lamps that rest on a table. At least this is the norm in the UK. So for a great many of us, turning our reading light out would just be an extension of our arm. My wife tends to prefer using the TV as her reading light. I find that rather bizarre but she likes the background noise. In any cas…

True, but not everyone does, and for them, the Echo provides extra functionality. I've also added a lot of dimmable lights in my home, and voice control to set a light or set of lights at 50% is much much less impactful to whatever I'm doing than pulling out a phone.

Re: Amazon can't yet completely delete Alexa voice transcriptions

#57

Post by mrlala »

jtdev wrote: post #6

I can’t believe that people actually pay for these things... Alexa has always seemed like a gimmick to me. I have an Ecobee smart thermostat that has integrated Alexa, which I promptly disabled after installation.

>Alexa has always seemed like a gimmick to me

...what?

Maybe you don't ever listen to music, but the first Echo was a GAME CHANGER. 99% hassle free being able to just say "play x on spotify" "play x on pandora" "play x on amazon music" "play radio station 103.5whatever". How else could you do that before the echo? You either had to plug in your phone/ipod and control it from there limited to what was on your device.. stream bluetooth from phone to speakers which was a nightmare and dependent on your phone there etc.

Ever cook and want to set a timer without having to touch anything and stop what you are doing?

Those two things ALONE are absolutely massive.. music + alarms.

Not to mention the pure simple info you can get- especially for kids. They can ask so many questions and get answers. They can set their own timers.

I can go on and on.. but it's pointless because you have decided a device that is vital to many peoples day-to-day life is still a gimmick in 2019....

Re: Amazon can't yet completely delete Alexa voice transcriptions

#58

Post by School-Cotton »

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #52
School-Cotton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Besides [a bunch of useful stuff], Alexa is useless! Therefore it's a gimmick." I have an Echo Dot which I use almost exclusively for a few static purposes: the weather, setting alarms, turning my lights on and off, and asking what time it is. I also ask it basic questions like whether various sports teams won or what time they're playing, which it also answers well. Not sure why you think it is useless just because…

Call me crazy but, but paying 30 dollars to lose all of my privacy just so I don't have to get up to turn off the light at night seems like a poor trade. Maybe not useless, but I honestly think you can do better. And a basic raspberry pi could be programmed to cycle through the weather, alarms, lights, time. I guess the crux of doing it that way however, is taking personal responsibility for security, which still see…

I already own other microphones, for example my smartphone, laptop, various earbud/microphone combos, etc.

I already trust all those manufacturers not to secretly upload everything I say to the cloud. Why is amazon any different?

Re: Amazon can't yet completely delete Alexa voice transcriptions

#59

Post by olivermarks »

NullPrefix wrote: post #55
jtdev wrote: post #6

I can’t believe that people actually pay for these things... Alexa has always seemed like a gimmick to me. I have an Ecobee smart thermostat that has integrated Alexa, which I promptly disabled after installation.

It's similar to mobility scooters. Made for handicapped, but also popular among the lazy.

ha, great analogy but without the snooping long tail result of usage...
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