From a computer science perspective, what should Google do to train its models in a privacy conscious way?
They can't. They need to transcribe the data.
Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
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Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#32From a computer science perspective, what should Google do to train its models in a privacy conscious way?
Decide if it even can and if the answer is no then not do it.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#33Serious question: how do people think the ML models for Home, Alexa, Siri, etc are trained, if not with human labeling?
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#34This falls into the category of: I bugged my house... NOW MY HOUSE IS BUGGED! Not to dismiss the value of the news here, it is important for folks to know, but the overall situation is both concerning, and amusing.
Your phone has more sensors on it than these devices and most people have their phones on them 24/7. And most phones have the same voice-controlled features too. Why people are concerned about narrow scoped voice-devices more than their phone is a curious thing. Is it because it talks back to you that makes it more apparent?
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#35"The man, who wants to remain anonymous, works for an international company hired by Google. " So not a Google employee at all, a probably low paid contractor who is in possession of thousands of audio files. Your privacy matters, except when the bottom line is involved.
The person is probably a temp/vendor from a consulting company (think accenture or cognizant), who should've signed the same NDA agreements as anyone working on that stuff.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#36The one thing about these stories that keep coming out about the home assistants... they kind of create the impression that this is an issue specific to home speakers, and you can avoid it, by simply not buying them. That's misleading. Any voice command you use to operate any internet connected tech gadget, from phones to smart TV's, is potentially stored and flagged for human review. You really have to avoid using v…
And not to be anywhere near anyone else's listening devices.
Isn't there a law in some US states that there needs to be consent before recording someone? How does this fit in and who would be held responsible, the owner of the listening device or the company behind it?
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#37The one thing about these stories that keep coming out about the home assistants... they kind of create the impression that this is an issue specific to home speakers, and you can avoid it, by simply not buying them. That's misleading. Any voice command you use to operate any internet connected tech gadget, from phones to smart TV's, is potentially stored and flagged for human review. You really have to avoid using v…
...and this is before you get to hacked/compromised devices. This is just devices working as specified.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#38So Google’s response is (paraphrased as fairly as I can while removing the sugar-coating): ’Yes, we hire people to listen in to and transcribe some conversations from the private homes of our customers (so as improve our speech recognition engines); but the recordings aren’t linked to personally identifiable information.’ Even assuming they have only the purest intentions here, I still don’t understand how they can p…
I would count a recording of my voice as "personally identifiable information" right off the bat. Voice printing is a thing, and anyone will also tell you that they recognize the voices of people they interact with regularly. If someone played an audio clip of someone I know talking to Google Assistant to me, I would recognize who it was based on their voice.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#39My biggest frustration is going to a friends house which is blanketed with Echo/Google coverage and realizing that all my words could be used against me at a later time. How does one approach this situation?
I mean, it's roughly the same level of exposure you run into literally every minute you're out in public anyway - all those phones around you have microphones, and more and more, they're always listening in exactly the same fashion. This is how always-on "Hey Siri" or "Okay Google" works. Which isn't to say it isn't frustrating, just that your frustration at your friend is misplaced - they're not exposing you to anyt…
Scary though isn't it ? With increasing moves in these companies to govern human thought, I can imagine a time when it'll be extremely difficult to have any independent thought of your own. It's already this way in the academia/media, where anything outside the norm is considered 'blasphemy'.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#40This falls into the category of: I bugged my house... NOW MY HOUSE IS BUGGED! Not to dismiss the value of the news here, it is important for folks to know, but the overall situation is both concerning, and amusing.
Most people assume that the system is entirely automated, and that their commands will be processed by mere computers, not listened to by actual people who might even be their own neighbours.
Most people unfortunately are specialists in at most one field.
Outside of that specialisation they are distinctly average.
We because of who we are entirely expect this stuff but I'm sure I miss all kinds of things that are outside my specialization.
Modern society has become so complex no one person can keep track off all the moving parts to know if they are been taken advantage off for example.