101–110 of 125 posts
It's baffling that so many people insist this is not happening, or that it's too computationally expensive. On several occasions I've seen ads appear based upon things being discussed, but never searched. Always with the realization I was near a smart device with a microphone (or an app with permissions) I think in hindsight this will be similar to the realization that systems like XKeyscore and PRISM were not only t…
It's baffling that so many people insist this is not happening, or that it's too computationally expensive. On several occasions I've seen ads appear based upon things being discussed, but never searched. Always with the realization I was near a smart device with a microphone (or an app with permissions) I think in hindsight this will be similar to the realization that systems like XKeyscore and PRISM were not only t…
Maybe not the best example (please chime in if you have a better one!), ha you ever shopped for a specific model of used car? Once you're on the hunt, suddenly you'll start seeing them everywhere when you're out and about, even though previously you didn't notice. There aren't more of that vehicle on the road than before, but now you're attuned to the pattern.
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Alexa uses the data we give to it by speaking and performing actions via downloaded skills - is very similar to all ad platforms, conveying user intent into ad profiles. Saying “process voice for ads” has subtle connotations in the current landscape of privacy discussions.
Unlike other ad platforms, Amazon claims that they do not use voice data for ad targeting. From paper: Amazon has publicly stated that it does not use voice data for targeted advertisements [83], [75]. https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/are-smart-speakers-plant...
They're using skill interaction, order history, listening history, etc to target ads.
https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/corporate/acquisitions/gr...
From what is worth, I'm a data scientist who has worked on ads in the past. I've always been under the impression that massive scale audio processing for ad targetting was way too expensive when compared to the signal we can extract from the audio data and as compared to the final ad conversion. I mean, at least from the prices of having an instance processing streams/bacthes of audio data just to sort out brands/pro…
It's not claiming Alexa is listening in while inactive. It's claiming that it's inferring user characteristics (age, health, etc) from the audio of voice commands, instead of just the post-transcription text.
I would be SUPER interested to see this same methodology applied to an iPhone or an Android phone resting in a room. I've already had the feeling that discussions that I had, later had an impact on my ads, but never knew if it was random or not.
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They only need to collect it and do voice recognition: the ad buyers are more than happy to buy the text and do the rest of the data mining. “Sell my product to anyone that mentions fridge” Yanno?
That feels like the kind of thing that sounds good on the surface, but breaks down when you actually try to size it. The incremental value of that data vs search data seems nearly 0 - I would guess almost everyone who has searched for a fridge has said some variation of "fridge" out loud, and there would be so much additional noise from people who say it but aren't in any way intending to buy a new fridge. But don't…
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> What part of the paper gives you the impression they imply voice assistants are listening to everything? For me, it's this: "Your Echos are Heard" So, the opening salvo. That's what gives me the impression they imply voice assistances are listening to everything. I don't refer to voice commands or normal interaction as "echos" so the user of the word "echos" here implies something nefarious. Sure, it's the name of…
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WOW
That was a hostile response for what seemed like a reasonable position.
Tell me samhw: If I told you I had a bunch of echos in my garage. Would you be wondering why I just said "I have a bunch of voice commands issued to my echo in my garage"? No. You would not.
It's not an unreasonable position
So tell me why it deserved that response.
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This is called observational bias. Imo the truth is much scarier: advertises know us better than we known ourselves. There's also the idea that we are so alike, advertises can generalize to great success.
I think the truth is actually that we are MUCH less unique than we would like to believe, and that some combination of age + gender + location probably predicts like 80% of our interests.