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

Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

protocol.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 287 posts

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

#261

Post by ocdtrekkie »

parineum wrote: post #259
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't different values, it's that non-technical users aren't able to make informed consent, they don't understand how they're being harmed.

So instead of informing them you just unplug the devices or you did inform them, they don't agree with you, and now you take it upon yourself to do what's best for them because they just don't understand.

When attempting to inform them of real world events has them treat you like you're a UFO nut...

I take it upon myself to do what's best for me. They're free to use whatever they want when I'm not there, but I'm not going to be in the house with the blasted thing.

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

#262

Post by scollet »

asfginino wrote: post #149
zachm0 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small knit pick, but speech to text isn’t lossless. How someone says the words has a lot of impact on the meaning of those words. It’s possible Amazon doesn’t care about that lost information but that is a completely different conversation.

That's true. Speech to text also isn't entirely accurate, which loses some information. Even when they actually do ship audio off the device for processing, I'd be surprised if it's done losslessly.

For anyone curious about this, I highly recommend developing on CMU Sphinx for a weekend project. It will really paint some pictures about machine interpretation based on training data and the actual application code.

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

#263

Post by WWLink »

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.

To me the worst part is you don't need to have constantly-connected-to-the-internet voice recognition. It certainly wasn't a thing until recently. That's why I tend to think of it as an act of malice.

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

#264

Post by felbane »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #237
zizee wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I don't understand why you just didn't throw it away, or put it in a box powered down. A possible subtext to what you have written is that your employer (google) was mandating that you keep using the device at home as part of your employment... but that is outrageous an…

> A possible subtext to what you have written is that your employer (google) was mandating that you keep using the device at home as part of your employment... but that is outrageous and I would like clarification as I feel it cannot be true. The requirement to use a Google device at home has never been imposed to the best of my knowledge, at least unless this individual was working on the product. Even then they wou…

>Also, there is no way anyone would ever be permitted to run the type of conversation analysis that the GP proposes.

I flatly disagree with this statement. I have experienced first-hand how conversation analysis can turn into targeted advertising... and there are many others who have shared similar experiences.

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

#265

Post by variable11 »

IshKebab wrote: post #99
sschueller wrote: post #94

Google sent me two of these home speakers for free. Why? I never asked for it and I will never use it.

Probably because you signed up for or bought something else and it was a deal. Either that or they made a mistake. Google aren't in the practice of just sending free hardware to people for no reason so I'm not sure what your point is?

Why so hostile? Can't stand even a tiny bit of criticism of Google?

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

#266

Post by themacguffinman »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #249
themacguffinman wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear that your parents have different values from you regardless of what you tell them, an obvious point that seems to be lost on many commentators in this thread who perpetually oscillate between "you don't know what you're doing!" and "how could you use such a device?!"

The problem isn't different values, it's that non-technical users aren't able to make informed consent, they don't understand how they're being harmed.

How convenient. They still don't agree after you've evidently informed them? "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the parents who are wrong" /s

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

#267

Post by beardedwizard »

dragonwriter wrote: post #57
beardedwizard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if weed became illegal again? Hmmmmmmmmm

> And if weed became illegal again? “became...again”? When did the federal prohibition of weed end?

Exactly.

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

#268

Post by tinus_hn »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #157
ineedasername wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You addressed storage but skipped the CPU portion: Yes, Opus can create good quality audio with low storage requirements, but it cannot do so without a high CPU cost.

ARM CPUs can be rather performant, especially for specialist tasks. These things are always plugged in and don't need to save battery, therefore they can always run at maximum performance. The HomePod for example uses the Apple A8 chip which is a very capable chip used to power the iPhone 6 than did way more than encode/decode audio.

HomePod is not exactly a cheap device.

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

#269

Post by tinus_hn »

weehoo wrote: post #95
feralimal wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be as high as you think, if they are processing the data and sending a summary over, rather than the raw sound file.

Dragon Naturally Speaking ran on clients without network access in the 90s. A given household might have 20,000 words spoken in a day. With speech to text, then compression, this would be a 20kb network request. If you only sent data once a month the data/day could likely be reduced even further. This could easily be Trojan-horsed alongside valid requests without anyone noticing.

These products required careful training to recognize one persons specific speech. They weren’t the quality we are used to today.

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

#270

Post by harha »

zizee wrote: post #233
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 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. I don't understand why you just didn't throw it away, or put it in a box powered down. A possible subtext to what you have written is that your employer (google) was mandating that you keep using the device at home as part of your employment... but that is outrageous an…

It was a new device (already public though) at that time and it wasn’t mandated, I got it for free though.

I did want to test it and see how it works and if it’s useful for me, I just don’t completely trust them and don’t think people should trust large corporations putting microphones in their houses, so I decided to put it in a room where I usually don’t have conversations until I either have a very strong assurance that it is safe and useful enough for me, or give it away to someone who doesn’t have these concerns, which is what I decided to do.

If it were mandated though I would have left Google immediately and news of that policy would have probably made its way to HN, so no subtext here.

Post reply on HN