Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations • Hacker News Board

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#181

Post by inetknght » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #147

ovi256 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This classification is very useful to discuss this issue. The difference between 3 and 4, noble as it is, can be caused by feasability concerns that push people into 3, not just ignorance of the privacy impact. Human labelling of training data sets is a big thing in supervised learning. Methods that dispense with this would be valuable for purely economic reasons beyond privacy - the cost of human labelling of data s…

It's not wrong for humans to label training data. It's wrong to let humans listen to voice recordings that users believed would be between them and a computer. The solutions are obvious: sell the things with a big sticker that says, "don't say anything private in earshot," revert to old fashioned research methods where you pay people to participate in your studies and get their permission, or ask people for permissio…

> like how Ubuntu asks me if I want to send them my core dumps

While I like how Ubuntu does it, I actually like better how Fedora does it. Not only do they ask to submit core dumps but gives you the ability to annotate and inspect what gets sent as well as gives you a bug report ID which you can use to follow up on.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#182

Post by Godel_unicode » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

okmokmz wrote: post #159

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

>To me, category 3 is the most dangerous. Tech workers have a responsibility not just understand the technologies that they work with, but also educate themselves on the societal implications of those technologies. And as others have pointed out, this extends beyond home speakers to any voice-enabled device in general. Yes I'm frequently amazed how many coworkers I have that are still completely plugged into Google,…

It sounds like you're hoping for this as evidence that you were right to be concerned; have you considered that you might be wrong? What if your coworkers are right, and the risk is actually extremely low? How would you determine that?

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#183

Post by noelsusman » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #111

I've long been curious how GDPR should be applied to Google Home, Alexa, etc. These devices record and upload voice recordings to the cloud (with a percentage apparently shared with Google contractors to process). The audio clips can be recordings of conversations of people who have not consented to being recorded. And I can't imagine it's possible for Amazon or Google to reasonably comply with Art. 15 or 17 (right o…

https://myaccount.google.com/data-and-personalization

Click on Voice & Audio Activity, then Manage Activity. You can listen to and delete every recording Google has of your voice. It's a little trippy to be honest. They've had this since long before the GDPR.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#184

Post by iamnothere » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

The Mycroft project has a better approach to this:

"Mycroft uses opt-in privacy. This means we will only record what you say to Mycroft with your explicit permission. Don’t want us to record your voice? No problem! If you’d like us to help Mycroft become more accurate, you can opt in to have your voice anonymously recorded."

(project is open source, at https://mycroft.ai/)

Let people participate in R&D if they want to, but don't force it.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#185

Post by alias_neo » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #152

arien wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not to be anywhere near anyone else's listening devices. Isn't there a law in some US states that there needs to be consent before recording someone? How does this fit in and who would be held responsible, the owner of the listening device or the company behind it?

> And not to be anywhere near anyone else's listening devices. No assistant records all the time, not Google, Amazon, or Apple. They listen for the "Wake Word" onboard using more primitive (and lower power consumption) Speech Recognition and only utilize The Cloud after the "Wake Word" (or phase) is spoken. You can confirm this using Wireshark. You can view and listen to your recorded speech on the Google Account Das…

No, they don't, however, accidental activation is still highly likely.

I've had other people's devices activate during conversations where I couldn't figure out which part of the sentence activated them, it just happens.

"Ok, Go get..." "Ok, Good ..." "All except..." "Sir, I..."

Then you have television shows and adverts that intentionally use language to activate these assistants.

Usually the assistants are going to say something when it accidentally detects a wake word, but if you're in another room or don't hear it for some reason, it can easily capture a conversation without you knowing.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#186

Post by Rapzid » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

> societal implications of those technologies

Asserting your point of view as "educated" and "correct" while labeling people who don't share it as dangerous. Doesn't sound like a great way to start a discussion.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#187

Post by snowwrestler » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

> Tech workers have a responsibility not just understand the technologies that they work with, but also educate themselves on the societal implications of those technologies.

I think this goes well beyond tech workers. I think it's time for society to legally recognize the balance between the value of ML systems and the privacy concerns of customers of ML.

Doctors and lawyers obviously should understand the value of privacy, but we, as a society, have also created legal rights and duties for them. Conversations with lawyers and doctors are legally privileged; at the same time, there are specific consequences for medical companies or lawyers who do not protect that information.

Companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, etc. certainly have the resources, intelligence, and sophistication to comply with a similar regulatory regime. IMO it should be possible to construct a law that allows companies to collect, store, and tag customer data for purposes of training ML systems, but sets serious duties, with consequences, on them to do it right.

Right now, what is to keep employees at these companies from abusing these systems to stalk, to surveil, to harass, or even just to feed their own curiosity? These data systems are core trade secrets for these companies, which means they are opaque to any kind of oversight from outside the company.

The free market can't create the necessary balance because customers need information to make decisions--information that they don't have. The result will be an increasingly chaotic "hero/shithead rollercoaster" as customers make snap judgments based on scanty or wrong information about what these companies are actually doing.

This is a classic case for regulation, which prevents a "race to the bottom" of sketchy practices for short term gain, while also protecting the ability of people and companies to use this technology to create value.

Doing this right will help data-leveraging companies in the long run, just like attorney-client privilege and HIPAA have helped lawyers and doctors build trust (and therefore value) in their customer relationships.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#188

Post by alias_neo » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #181

whatshisface wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not wrong for humans to label training data. It's wrong to let humans listen to voice recordings that users believed would be between them and a computer. The solutions are obvious: sell the things with a big sticker that says, "don't say anything private in earshot," revert to old fashioned research methods where you pay people to participate in your studies and get their permission, or ask people for permissio…

> like how Ubuntu asks me if I want to send them my core dumps While I like how Ubuntu does it, I actually like better how Fedora does it. Not only do they ask to submit core dumps but gives you the ability to annotate and inspect what gets sent as well as gives you a bug report ID which you can use to follow up on.

Agreed, I'd like to support Ubuntu development, I often run it on bleeding edge hardware I'd like to submit crash reports for, but the inability to sanitise the data causes me not to unless it's a "fresh" device.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#189

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #148

pjc50 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder how people felt about handing all their personal photos over to a stranger just so they can get developed and printed, back in the 1990s. By today's standards, that would be incredibly creepy. But everyone did it because... having photos is pretty awesome. This had its own set of norms associated with it: people would not take in photos that could be considered "indecent". Possibly by the extremely conserv…

What would they do with the indecent photos then?

Not take them in the first place, develop them at home or a private lab, or use Polaroids.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#190

Post by inetknght » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

okmokmz wrote: post #159

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

>To me, category 3 is the most dangerous. Tech workers have a responsibility not just understand the technologies that they work with, but also educate themselves on the societal implications of those technologies. And as others have pointed out, this extends beyond home speakers to any voice-enabled device in general. Yes I'm frequently amazed how many coworkers I have that are still completely plugged into Google,…

> there needs to be a massive breach or abuse of power from one of these organizations/services that has severe real world consequences for those that utilize/support them. Until then nothing will change.

I think even more darkly: that the consequences of something severe enough to cause that change would be so much as to effectively destroy modern civilization. Consider that much of the modern economy is driven by tech companies not only ignoring privacy but often actively violating it.