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The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

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Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#411

Post by 52-6F-62 »

dingnuts wrote: post #407
EGreg wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until people start buying Tesla’s optimus robots! Cheap and ubiquitous surveillance will be the norm in the future.

if people really think Musk is a Nazi, this would be like literally putting mindless order-following gestapo right in your house. Surveillance? Shit they could just kill you the moment you were discovered to be some undesirable. We're talking about a humanoid-ish robot, after all. If it can help you with the laundry it can bash your head in, too.

Pretty sure the “deletion” of undesirables is part of the plan, if a little bit further down the line.

I thought they were waiting for ubiquitous AI micro drone technology. Maybe not.

https://www.vcinfodocs.com/weapons-startups

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#412

Post by _fat_santa »

bentt wrote: post #351

I know this single bit of news isn't the biggest deal. However we were talking at the dinner table, my wife and two kids and I. We just decided we're done with Amazon and Alexa. My wife has always been skeeved out by the devices, and I've reassured her that the wake word is the only time it's recording. Whether this is true or not, it's obvious that the company can no longer be trusted. So yeah we're just going to ge…

My wife loves Alexa devices and we have two at home. Knowing I would loose the privacy argument with her, I did the next best thing and setup a pi-hole. With that pi-hole I discovered that Alexa devices send one request to answer your question and another one to Amazon analytics and it was pretty easy to allow one but block the other.

Though I'll be honest, there's really no way of knowing if they are sending analytics data with the "main" payload and I suspect they are, so I'm not entirely sure how good my method is.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#413

Post by Nullabillity »

natnatenathan wrote: post #361
bentt wrote: post #351

I know this single bit of news isn't the biggest deal. However we were talking at the dinner table, my wife and two kids and I. We just decided we're done with Amazon and Alexa. My wife has always been skeeved out by the devices, and I've reassured her that the wake word is the only time it's recording. Whether this is true or not, it's obvious that the company can no longer be trusted. So yeah we're just going to ge…

We did this, we realized we never really used them. It has made our home feels a bit more peaceful. Our inflection point was the upsells we would get every time we talked to it. “Would you also like to shop for Prime Day?”

> “Would you also like to shop for Prime Day?”

Holy shit, what?!

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#414

Post by [deleted] »

HideousKojima wrote: post #366
letier wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how it interacts with life expectancy. There is a huge difference between Mississippi and the UK: 78.6 years for males and 82.6 years for females in the UK in 2020 to 2022. 68.6 years for males and 75.2 years for females in Mississippi in 2020 and 67.7 years for makes and 74.3 years for females in Mississippi in 2021. Might go up a bit if you have 2022 numbers, but the difference is huge.

Life expectancy differences in Mississippi vs. the UK is largely due to race. Mississippi is about 36% black, and blacks in the US have a 5+ year shorter life expectancy than whites.

[deleted]

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#415

Post by solardev »

dingnuts wrote: post #407
EGreg wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until people start buying Tesla’s optimus robots! Cheap and ubiquitous surveillance will be the norm in the future.

if people really think Musk is a Nazi, this would be like literally putting mindless order-following gestapo right in your house. Surveillance? Shit they could just kill you the moment you were discovered to be some undesirable. We're talking about a humanoid-ish robot, after all. If it can help you with the laundry it can bash your head in, too.

On the bright side, at least I'll die with a clean shirt on.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#416

Post by mmooss »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #372
bentt wrote: post #351

I know this single bit of news isn't the biggest deal. However we were talking at the dinner table, my wife and two kids and I. We just decided we're done with Amazon and Alexa. My wife has always been skeeved out by the devices, and I've reassured her that the wake word is the only time it's recording. Whether this is true or not, it's obvious that the company can no longer be trusted. So yeah we're just going to ge…

My partner and I have both an Alexa and a Google Home Assistant and we leave the mic off on both devices. The Alexa we got because we have a Blink doorbell and it connects to the Alexa in order to make a sound when someone rings the doorbell. The Google Home Assistant came with the Google Nest Wifi Mesh extender. We both care about privacy so that's why we turned them off (but not enough to not have the physical devi…

> we leave the mic off on both devices

How is this controlled? They wouldn't at all be the first devices that deceitfully redefine 'off', or in their documentation say 'off, except ...', or just don't bother to implement it carefully because it's not a priority.

Generally, I would trust something that physically turns it off - a physical switch that didn't just trigger software, but broke the circuit to the mic.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#417

Post by mmooss »

tiahura wrote: post #358
bentt wrote: post #351

I know this single bit of news isn't the biggest deal. However we were talking at the dinner table, my wife and two kids and I. We just decided we're done with Amazon and Alexa. My wife has always been skeeved out by the devices, and I've reassured her that the wake word is the only time it's recording. Whether this is true or not, it's obvious that the company can no longer be trusted. So yeah we're just going to ge…

Seems kinda paranoid. I've yet to meet anyone, who's met anyone, who's been harmed by not turning that setting off, or been harmed by any assistant listening.

What about political oppression? It's hard to argue, at this point, that the US federal government and others wouldn't obtain and use the data. Would Jeff Bezos stand up to them?

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#418

Post by thih9 »

dingnuts wrote: post #407
EGreg wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until people start buying Tesla’s optimus robots! Cheap and ubiquitous surveillance will be the norm in the future.

if people really think Musk is a Nazi, this would be like literally putting mindless order-following gestapo right in your house. Surveillance? Shit they could just kill you the moment you were discovered to be some undesirable. We're talking about a humanoid-ish robot, after all. If it can help you with the laundry it can bash your head in, too.

To be fair, we don’t need a new product, a tesla can do the same[1].

With AIs becoming more powerful and expanding to new areas, it makes even more sense to avoid businesses that are consistently user hostile.

I wonder if anti tesla protests and related bad pr will contribute to increased consumer awareness around the topic.

[1]: e.g. it can crash into a will e coyote style wall on autopilot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQJL3htsDyQ&t=899s

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#419

Post by uoaei »

empressplay wrote: post #384
LMYahooTFY wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't it have to listen to everything locally for a command though? I wonder if only commands are keywords.

The 'wake' (eg 'Alexa') trigger match is very fuzzy (which is why other words can sometimes set it off) and there's no analysis beyond looking for that particular trigger

The first point is obviously true, the second point is just an assumption you're making and trying to dress up as fact.

Can't imagine why anyone would want to do that, unless maybe they work for Amazon in a capacity related to this data?

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#420

Post by uoaei »

jjulius wrote: post #381
flanbiscuit wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner and I have both an Alexa and a Google Home Assistant and we leave the mic off on both devices. The Alexa we got because we have a Blink doorbell and it connects to the Alexa in order to make a sound when someone rings the doorbell. The Google Home Assistant came with the Google Nest Wifi Mesh extender. We both care about privacy so that's why we turned them off (but not enough to not have the physical devi…

>... we have a Blink doorbell... >We both care about privacy...

They care, just not enough to justify losing a single convenience that they didn't know they needed.
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