Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 191 posts

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#171

Post by jlund-molfese »

tdeck wrote: post #140
Otter_ai wrote: post #85

[flagged]

I understand people's reaction in downvotoing this impersonal canned response, but I think it's worth keeping it visible for other readers to understand how Otter chooses to officially respond to the complaint.

Original response from Otter_ai, for those who don’t have showdead enabled:

> Hi there! With our new repackaging, Basic users are getting more features, including Otter Assistant, which has the ability to auto-join meetings and auto-share notes connected to users’ Google or Outlook Calendars. Users have full control of whether their Otter Assistant joins meetings and shares notes with calendar event guests. For maximum automation, users can turn on this toggle to invite Otter Assistant to join all meetings by default. At anytime, you can change this default setting. Users can also adjust individual auto-join and auto-share settings on the calendar on the Otter home page as needed, overriding any defaults settings. You can find more information on how to use Otter Assistant here - https://help.otter.ai/hc/en-us/articles/4425393298327

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#172

Post by jrumbut »

chris_wot wrote: post #169
refulgentis wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more terrible is using a recording service when you're in a meeting with me, not telling me, then complaining the real problem is the service told me

He didn't want Otter.ai to transcribe. He had turned it off!

As understandable as the mistake is, I would be upset if I had arranged a private meeting with someone and they let a third party into the conversation (excluding force majeure such as sophisticated hacking, violence, etc).

Especially if it was some unaccountable third party recording agent! Who knows where that data is going?

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#173

Post by userbinator »

I've recently noticed that whenever I end up having to use services like Teams that try to automatically transcribe or notify me that such is happening, I tend to unconsciously start skewing my accent and general speech patterns to make that harder, perhaps as a subtle form of protest. Meanwhile, the humans don't seem to find it more difficult to understand.

Now I'm even more inclined to do it by default...

Unfortunately I don't know enough about STT/DSP to write a filter that can turn speech into something that completely fucks up AIs (bonus points for making them produce entirely different but plausibly correct words) while still remaining decently comprehensible to humans, or I'd give it a try.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#174

Post by sootty »

1. Emailing the participants the summary without a permission to control it can be pretty damaging. 2. Were the meetings it joined set up before you disabled that feature? It is likely that they were already in the system and your off flag only kicks in for future meetings? 3. For auto-joining there is a tradeoff in the ease of use versus compliance. 4. I am the founder of Wingman - the way we handle this is a) You have the option of not syncing your calendar and only adding meetings you want recorded manually b) The meeting participants can request the recording - it isn't automatically emailed to anyone c) You can choose to only record external meetings or internal + external meetings d) For an org-wide usecase, you have the option of making all your meeting recordings private by default

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#176

Post by closewith »

Bakary wrote: post #158
closewith wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is legal in my region, but people will be (very rightfully) creeped out by it and are unlikely to ever buy my short term memory sob story. Okay, so maybe it's best if you don't do it then?

No, because no harm is done once I delete the files after looking over the notes, and I am able to perform my job far better than otherwise. It's just that from an outside perspective it is unlikely to sound innocuous despite being so. It's a bit like those 'wait I can explain' situations in sitcoms.

You do you, but if it would creep them out and you knowingly continue while hiding the fact from them, that feels to me like a breach of trust.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#177

Post by password4321 »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #166
password4321 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://alphacephei.com/vosk/install#usage-examples demonstrates the bare-bones vosk-transcriber sample, and there's also https://www.assemblyai.com/blog/getting-started-with-espnet I wasn't able to play with https://github.com/o-oconnell/mp4grep on ARM.

Ah, vosk-transcriber looks like it's decent, especially if you use srt output so you have timestamps. Probably no reason to use mp4grep for this purpose then.

I'm still hoping for a turn-key open source solution that includes speaker identification.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#179

Post by sergefaguet »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #160
sergefaguet wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Change by definition requires breaking established rules and is how societies grow. Normal part of the process.

change doesn't require breaking established laws , however, and that's what we're talking about

Doesn’t require it but it is ok if that happens.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#180

Post by chris_wot »

jrumbut wrote: post #172
chris_wot wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't want Otter.ai to transcribe. He had turned it off!

As understandable as the mistake is, I would be upset if I had arranged a private meeting with someone and they let a third party into the conversation (excluding force majeure such as sophisticated hacking, violence, etc). Especially if it was some unaccountable third party recording agent! Who knows where that data is going?

OK, and nobody is disputing this. The fact remains, he did not let any third party into the conversation.
Post reply on HN