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Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

protocol.com

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Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#101

Post by 0134340 »

sp332 wrote: post #46
polote wrote: post #3

How could people on HN be surprised about that kind of thing ?

A Google spokesperson told Protocol that the feature was accidentally enabled for some users through a recent software update and has since been rolled back. "Surprise" is not relevant. This is holding Google accountable for shady shit, which is something we should never stop doing.

Ah, google and their hapless hardware updates accidentally spying on users, killing my friend's and others Nexus phones as well as my own Nexus Player (oops!). No more Google hardware for me.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#102

Post by ineedasername »

croutonwagon wrote: post #91
harha wrote: post #86

I had one of these when I worked for Google, I didn’t quite trust it though, so I had it in the bathroom to limit what my employer could listen to. Imagine discussing a product idea at home with friends, then having that stolen by an engineer at one of these companies (who figured out how to find the interesting conversations) for a promotion or new position. On a larger scale these might get hooked up with some adve…

I just dont have them in the house. Every now and then i get called paranoid. And sure, my phone can function the same (though i specifically have siri disabled on our iphones) Its just a cost benefit. I can get off the couch and flip a switch or use a remote to turn on a song. I really dont need speach recognition for those functions.

Many of the same benefits can be had without always-listening devices. You can control things from your phone. Or in my case, I usually have a pair of bluetooth earphones around my neck, I push a button and say something and that's all it listens to. The always-listening "okay google" can be disabled.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#103

Post by harha »

croutonwagon wrote: post #91
harha wrote: post #86

I had one of these when I worked for Google, I didn’t quite trust it though, so I had it in the bathroom to limit what my employer could listen to. Imagine discussing a product idea at home with friends, then having that stolen by an engineer at one of these companies (who figured out how to find the interesting conversations) for a promotion or new position. On a larger scale these might get hooked up with some adve…

I just dont have them in the house. Every now and then i get called paranoid. And sure, my phone can function the same (though i specifically have siri disabled on our iphones) Its just a cost benefit. I can get off the couch and flip a switch or use a remote to turn on a song. I really dont need speach recognition for those functions.

Absolutely agree that the convenience doesn’t make up for the downsides.

I do think that some cases can be covered without putting data out in the wild with some third party. Siri and similar apps don’t do well with complex commands, but just fine with simple things (light switch, calendar entry, alarm) that an offline tool might also understand. Same goes for fitness trackers, note taking apps, etc.

We as consumers should choose such alternatives. As developers and entrepreneurs we should try to enable these solutions, so we don’t have to rely on apps that might monetize differently than advertised or turn off when some company decides it’s not profitable enough.

There’s also work being done on decentralizing analysis and monetizing your own data, but I’m not sure it’s ready yet.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#104

Post by eloff »

choeger wrote: post #97

I might sound like a grumpy old granddad to some of you (and I am not even that old), but did you really think that a huge company would offer to put microphones into your living room for your advantage? They are going to benefit from this and you are going to pay for it. How? For instance with dynamic pricing. Your loved ones tell you how much they want that vacation on that Greek island? Good luck finding a cheap f…

Any of those things would be such massive trust violations that the fallout would almost certainly sink the product and badly tarnish the company. That's not saying a company wouldn't be stupid enough to try it, but it's very clearly a bad business decision - so logically they wouldn't do it.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#105

Post by changoplatanero »

choeger wrote: post #97

I might sound like a grumpy old granddad to some of you (and I am not even that old), but did you really think that a huge company would offer to put microphones into your living room for your advantage? They are going to benefit from this and you are going to pay for it. How? For instance with dynamic pricing. Your loved ones tell you how much they want that vacation on that Greek island? Good luck finding a cheap f…

You're spreading conspiracy theories. There is no way Google is listening to your phone calls and using the information for ads.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#106

Post by changoplatanero »

feralimal wrote: post #49

How surprised would you be if in 5 years there was a Snowden-type revelation, that yes, the speakers and Facebook/Insta apps, Amazon echo, etc, etc, were listening all the time? Sorry. And that there was a secret court ruling that meant all that data was live-streamed to NSA Utah. Not surprised at all, is the answer.

As someone who has worked on speech recognition at several of these companies I'm quite certain that they are not listening all the time

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#107

Post by _visgean »

pabe wrote: post #47
paul_f wrote: post #16

There is a big difference between smoke alarm detection built into the wake-up-word circuitry, versus every sound sent to Google's servers for analysis. I am not bothered by the former, but would be aghast at the latter. Does anyone know for sure?

Most likely, an AI model that detects specific sounds is running directly on those devices. No need to transfer anything to Google's servers for analysis =)

From what I have heard you don't need any fancy AI models for detecting either of these sounds. Some of the older alarms were using classic signal processing to to this decades ago.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#108

Post by asddubs »

eloff wrote: post #104
choeger wrote: post #97

I might sound like a grumpy old granddad to some of you (and I am not even that old), but did you really think that a huge company would offer to put microphones into your living room for your advantage? They are going to benefit from this and you are going to pay for it. How? For instance with dynamic pricing. Your loved ones tell you how much they want that vacation on that Greek island? Good luck finding a cheap f…

Any of those things would be such massive trust violations that the fallout would almost certainly sink the product and badly tarnish the company. That's not saying a company wouldn't be stupid enough to try it, but it's very clearly a bad business decision - so logically they wouldn't do it.

sure, it's company policy not to. but if you do it anyway and don't get caught, your risk-taking will be rewarded, so it becomes a numbers game/informal policy.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#109

Post by throwaway936482 »

changoplatanero wrote: post #105
choeger wrote: post #97

I might sound like a grumpy old granddad to some of you (and I am not even that old), but did you really think that a huge company would offer to put microphones into your living room for your advantage? They are going to benefit from this and you are going to pay for it. How? For instance with dynamic pricing. Your loved ones tell you how much they want that vacation on that Greek island? Good luck finding a cheap f…

You're spreading conspiracy theories. There is no way Google is listening to your phone calls and using the information for ads.

Just like they would never scan the content of your emails and serve up targeted ads based on that... Oh, wait, they were doing that up until 2017...

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#110

Post by ineedasername »

choeger wrote: post #97

I might sound like a grumpy old granddad to some of you (and I am not even that old), but did you really think that a huge company would offer to put microphones into your living room for your advantage? They are going to benefit from this and you are going to pay for it. How? For instance with dynamic pricing. Your loved ones tell you how much they want that vacation on that Greek island? Good luck finding a cheap f…

Yes, sure, it could be a slippery slope, but there's a reason that phrase denotes a logical fallacy. As with most technologies, we don't need to ban something desirable, but we do need to develop a set of social norms and corporate transparency around responsible usage. We're at the very beginning stages of that process, because all of this stuff, at this scale, is relatively new. The GDRP is far from perfect, but it sets the stage for this sort of effort.
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