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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

#571

Post by margalabargala »

sitkack wrote: post #532
margalabargala wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between cell phones, IOT doorbells, and incredibly inexpensive security cameras, even a world free from Tesla has cheap and ubiquitous surveillance. But you're correct, Tesla is yet another among the multitudes with a robust surveillance network

Every starlink station (and probably) tesla, scoop up every mac address they ever see. This is one is unique in that it puts all that data into a single actor's hands.

Of course starlink stations scoop mac addresses. They are in this way equivalent to and on par with every other wifi router.

A Tesla vehicle could also scoop up visible mac addresses, and is equally as capable of doing so as every other wifi-enabled device with closed source firmware.

Android phones have been scooping wifi mac addresses, pairing them with GPS data, and sending that to google for at least 7 years: https://slate.com/technology/2018/06/how-google-uses-wi-fi-n...

Apple probably has an equivalent system.

Privacy-wise, Tesla is shitty but not extraordinarily shitty. Their surveillance capabilities do not differentiate them from among the multitudes. Let's assume maximum maliciousness. Assuming you don't own one, could Tesla track you particularly better than, say, Square? Or Google? Or Palantir? Or Comcast? Or any cell phone company? Or whomever it is that owns the cameras at each traffic light intersection?

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

#572

Post by kzrdude »

divbzero wrote: post #566
eitally wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting because I remember interviewing a UX manager candidate at Google around 2019 who was coming from the Alexa team at Amazon, and his feedback even then was that Alexa was never going to be profitable and that he -- and many others -- were trying to get out while the getting was good. It, just like Google Assistant, is just suffering a very slow death.

2019 was before ChatGPT. Generative AI could change the game for digital voice assistants.

I think it's weird that they (Alexa, Google etc) haven't tried to do something new with generative AI assistants.

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

#573

Post by Capricorn2481 »

Aurornis wrote: post #442
odo1242 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a more likely exploit would be it starting to listen for other wake words (different from the original one) and then recording whenever those words are said. Still would be a massive conspiracy lol

> Still would be a massive conspiracy lol Exactly. Tens of thousands of people have worked on these products. Many of them ex-employees now. Many disgruntled, even. And we’re supposed to believe they’re all united in keeping this a secret? Nothing has been leaked, no security researchers have found anything, just a perfectly hidden conspiracy sitting in millions of homes?

> Tens of thousands of people have worked on these products

I agree with the sentiment, but that seems like a vast overestimation on who would actually know what the device collects. More sophisticated things than this have been made with less. Programmers often have siloed concerns, and PMs only know what their incentives are. It's not hard to imagine less than a hundred people knowing, and what percentage of those people care about us?

Do we have some data that suggests tens of thousands of people have had an integral role in Alexa?

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

#574

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #548
everdrive wrote: post #186

People don't really care about privacy, it's as simple as that. Yes, they worry about privacy, and complain about violations of privacy. But if they cared, they never would have purchased this product in the first place. There are bits of technology which violate privacy, but are extremely difficult to fully avoid: Social Media, (I know a lot of HN isn't on it, but how about most of your family and friends?) smart ph…

This argument, "People don't really care about ...", is not so much an argument as it is a rationalization for amoral or simply bad behavior on the part of the seller/supplier. It is the rationale for the existence of regulation by government. The person who is in a position to protect the interests of the customer, whether or not the customer 'cares', has a moral obligation to take care. When the supplier chooses no…

> This argument, "People don't really care about ...", is not so much an argument as it is a rationalization for amoral or simply bad behavior on the part of the seller/supplier.

It's worse than that. It's adversarial propaganda.

People actually do care about privacy, but they also care about other things, and they don't always know about privacy.

If Amazon tells you that they're recording what you say at all, it's buried in a hundred page ToS that nobody reads, and then what they do with the information isn't even clearly specified. If people understood that they're using it to determine which products to show you so you're more likely to buy the ones with higher margins, and that's costing you $1200/year, people would care about that, but they don't even realize it's happening.

If the market is consolidated into two companies and they're both invading your privacy, or there is one company that doesn't but their product costs $500 more and the customer doesn't have $500 more, it's not that customers don't care, it's that they have no viable alternatives.

If they start using a product before it starts invading their privacy and then later it does, but that product is something like Microsoft Windows and by then they're so thoroughly locked into that platform that short-term extrication is infeasible, they grit their teeth and whinge about it because they wish there was an alternative, not because they don't.

Casting this as "people don't care" gets it wrong. If there are two otherwise-identical fungible products and one of them invades your privacy and the other one doesn't, not doing that is an advertisable feature. In a competitive market it's a competitive advantage. But if the incumbents can convince would-be competitors that it isn't then they don't have to face that competition, which is the purpose of the propaganda.

And in the markets where competition is lacking independently of this, the "regulation" needed is antitrust, because uncompetitive markets have more than just privacy problems.

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

#575

Post by [deleted] »

kzrdude wrote: post #572
divbzero wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2019 was before ChatGPT. Generative AI could change the game for digital voice assistants.

I think it's weird that they (Alexa, Google etc) haven't tried to do something new with generative AI assistants.

[deleted]

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

#576

Post by balamatom »

iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #525
balamatom wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what does this awareness gain you, other than a constant background suffering of cognitive dissonance?

While I have some level of appreciation of what you seem to be trying to do, I can't help but wonder as to what you believe you gain by this exchange. I don't automatically disagree with what you are saying, but you seem intent on riling people up. Is there a larger purpose behind it?

Yes, thanks for asking! You see, all this combining words in ways that people are taught to have a negative reaction to is actually part of my super secret plan to take over the world. (But don't worry, I promise to not be any better then the extant network of disavowed power relations maintained by recursive Pavlovian conditioning!)

Less facetiously (though only a smidgen less so), bold of you to assume that I think I stand to gain anything by such interactions. What I can only be expected to assume are conscious human beings, drag each other through the shit all the time, for absolutely zero actual benefit; what right do I have to expect anything in return for providing this common service?

After all, who am I to think I know anything? How can I know better than all others combined? No - I'm of the people, by the people, for the people, through and through; in fact, should the people decide so, they can destroy me within 24 hours, most of which will be taken up by scratching each other's backs for a job well done!

Sorry if this wasn't anything like the answer you were looking for, but I hope I've at least managed to answer in a way that makes you reflect on the nature, and possible ethical valence, of your question. Have a pleasant week, and may you gain disproportionately many things from your exchanges!

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

#577

Post by divbzero »

kzrdude wrote: post #572
divbzero wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2019 was before ChatGPT. Generative AI could change the game for digital voice assistants.

I think it's weird that they (Alexa, Google etc) haven't tried to do something new with generative AI assistants.

I think they have all been trying [1][2][3] which is why assessments about voice assistants from 2019 might not apply today.

[1]: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/new-alexa-generativ...

[2]: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-apple-intelligenc...

[3]: https://blog.google/products/assistant/google-assistant-bard...

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

#578

Post by wizzwizz4 »

azinman2 wrote: post #492
bitmasher9 wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is rarely the cheapest way to have a package delivered to your home in less than two days. You can often find people much cheaper if you don’t mind waiting a week or two. I reduced Amazon by 90% when I realized how much money I was wasting over 70-120 packages a year.

What’s the alternative? Everyone else has you pay for shipping, and it’s slower.

Everyone has you pay for shipping. Amazon just lies about it, and has contracts that prevent people from selling their wares anywhere else cheaper.

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

#579

Post by downrightmike »

everdrive wrote: post #186

People don't really care about privacy, it's as simple as that. Yes, they worry about privacy, and complain about violations of privacy. But if they cared, they never would have purchased this product in the first place. There are bits of technology which violate privacy, but are extremely difficult to fully avoid: Social Media, (I know a lot of HN isn't on it, but how about most of your family and friends?) smart ph…

Yeah, we do, that's why we didn't buy into the voice activated ecosystem from anyone. We voted with our wallets.

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

#580

Post by JasserInicide »

october8140 wrote: post #27

Our longstanding privacy commitment with Siri https://www.apple.com/jo/newsroom/2025/01/our-longstanding-p...

All bullshit. Apple loves to make a big stand on privacy but quietly folds just like the rest of them. Remember that big stink they rose over the FBI needing access to an encrypted phone a decade ago? Apple still gave everything the FBI requested some time later after got their PR win
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