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Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

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Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#321

Post by yellow_postit »

reaperducer wrote: post #310
shadowgovt wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the short run, it gives the company three direct benefits for making the technology work (besides the "They can advertise at you better" one that people like to drumbeat on). 1) Context is nearly invisible, and is constructed from dozens to hundreds of data points. Holding state on the user (not just from direct interaction with the agent, but from other services the agent can be aware of) makes a lot more context…

All of these items can be used through using test panels, or even dogfooding. There's no need to violate the privacy of millions of people.

That’s not going to produce a good model. Test panels and dogfooding are both small scale and introduce biases based on who uses them. Until the gains stop coming primarily from supervised deep learning we won’t move away from the winner being whomever has the largest, most diverse dataset and compute resources.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#322

Post by mey »

oppositelock wrote: post #304
saluki wrote: post #115

I was a huge Google Fan but this is becoming lunacy. I understood trading some data and privacy for great search results, maps and free quality email. But people willingly bringing always on listening devices in to their homes (beyond what smartphones are already capable of) I just can't comprehend it. Why would people voluntarily do this in exchange for being able to ask for weather, play a playlist, add a todo and…

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

I value privacy, my nest thermostat is the only IoT device in my house that talks to the internet or can be accessed remotely without a VPN. What I find most valuable is it programs itself. Am I cold? Turn it up a bit, hot? Turn it down a bit. Suddenly I have stopped having to adjust it at all. Even as life has changed. It has some nice other features, such as preheating/cooling, telling me how long it will take to get to temp, energy savings by allowing the electrical company to shift my cooling earlier before the afternoon rush.

I bought my Nest before Google bought the company, and I will switch brands instead of buying one of the Google built devices, again over privacy considerations. Hilariously enough, we entered the name of the thermostat as HAL.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#323

Post by yellow_postit »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #311
jcranberry wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't selectively listen. It processes all audio input for those key words. Once it hears the keyword, it then sends a recording of what you say next to a server.

Aren’t “OK Google, hey Siri, hey Alexa” all processed/recognized locally? Otherwise, it would be a horrible idea to send EVERYTHING off to the internet for processing. Not even concerning privacy issues, it would just be unworkable that way. (This is at least true for the iPhone, Hey Siri is recognized locally before anything is sent off to the net) Re reading your comment, I guess you mean: the sound processing goes…

There’s a ton of accidental triggers. Digging through my Alexa history was eye opening. I got the idea to go looking from this article: https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/amazon-alexa-made-an-acc...

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#324

Post by heavyset_go »

oppositelock wrote: post #304
saluki wrote: post #115

I was a huge Google Fan but this is becoming lunacy. I understood trading some data and privacy for great search results, maps and free quality email. But people willingly bringing always on listening devices in to their homes (beyond what smartphones are already capable of) I just can't comprehend it. Why would people voluntarily do this in exchange for being able to ask for weather, play a playlist, add a todo and…

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

> What does having a Nest thermostat get you?

Nothing that a programmable thermostat plus a Home Assistant instance won't get you.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#325

Post by mrzimmerman »

jacquesm wrote: post #277

Hahaha. Sorry, really? Your bloody thermostat requires a consent form now for visitors to your house. This madness should really stop. All these appliances with microphones phoning home your every spoken word should be burned in a large pile. Let's start over, this is not going to end well.

It's not including the thermostat, but he's specifically talking about etiquette, not legally binding EUAs with your house guests.

Think of it more as "Oh, btw, I've got cameras in the living room, kitchen, and on the back patio if that's something that bugs you."

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#326

Post by Mirioron »

oppositelock wrote: post #304
saluki wrote: post #115

I was a huge Google Fan but this is becoming lunacy. I understood trading some data and privacy for great search results, maps and free quality email. But people willingly bringing always on listening devices in to their homes (beyond what smartphones are already capable of) I just can't comprehend it. Why would people voluntarily do this in exchange for being able to ask for weather, play a playlist, add a todo and…

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

These kinds of devices are just slightly better than the old ones, because it's possible to programmatically control them. They would be an interesting idea, because they offer slightly better convenience than the previous devices, but they are such a huge privacy violation that they aren't worth it. Take out the privacy violating parts and they could be interesting products.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#327

Post by tomrod »

sorenn111 wrote: post #236
BlueTemplar wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is the only one of the GAFAMs that it's not practical to boycott : boycotting Amazon Web Services breaks a large part of the Web.

May I say that I love your use of GAFAM. I always thought FAANG was silly and Netflix was not like the others and was included just to make a good acronym

FAANG for top pay, GAFAM for global dominance?

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#328

Post by jbarberu »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #187
jbarberu wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wager most people adjust their behavior accordingly. I would absolutely expect privacy inside a home. If a friend had cameras inside their home I'd probably even opt to meet in public, where at least there's no false sense of privacy.

I get where you are coming from. How do you feel about things like Ring doorbells, where you are on camera approaching a home. Audio is being captured of at least some conversation inside the home, assuming there will be some proximity to the front door.

In the general sense I'd say I'm ok with a ring pointed at people's own property. I don't expect privacy in their front yard, might be a bit bothered in a backyard. A neighbor pointing their camera at the street accidentally capturing my coming and going would somehow feel like a privacy breach.

Ironically I currently have 2 ring cameras setup on the outside of my house, installed by previous owner. I'm looking to replace them down the line as I don't trust Amazon with my data.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#329

Post by Sargos »

mojuba wrote: post #271
glitcher wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame Star Trek. Simply speaking out loud to ask the computer anytime something was needed, it seemed like magical tech. We just didn't anticipate the companies and extra consequences that would come along with it. I would love to see a parody of Star Trek where all the tech is run by an advertising company exploiting all the crew members individually by capturing all their private data around the clock.

I think it looks comfortable in the Star Trek universe because it is implied that voice activated stuff is controlled by a super-AI. That is, the AI won't give humans access to the audio. Which in turn means we are going to have a super-AI that can restrict our rights and itself have access to vast amounts of information about us. I.e. Star Trek is a society essentially controlled by the AI, as it will be above us.

>a society essentially controlled by the AI, as it will be above us.

This is the highest probability of the realistic outcome of AGI as it will advance in capabilities so much and so rapidly that we won't be able to keep up. I personally think it will be benevolent and care for us like we do for our pets which won't necessarily be a bad thing.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#330

Post by mochomocha »

oppositelock wrote: post #304
saluki wrote: post #115

I was a huge Google Fan but this is becoming lunacy. I understood trading some data and privacy for great search results, maps and free quality email. But people willingly bringing always on listening devices in to their homes (beyond what smartphones are already capable of) I just can't comprehend it. Why would people voluntarily do this in exchange for being able to ask for weather, play a playlist, add a todo and…

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

It gets you troubles. Just bought a house that had some installed. Had weird "lost connection" failures, and the "smartness" trying to learn what's the right temperature for you doesn't work. After two months, I still have to wake up in the middle of the night to manually reset the temperature to something reasonable.
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