Alexa.

[Chippy_Tea]

I have never understood the need for these smart speakers as most of us have smartphones and I assume they can do everything these speakers can, how many members have one and did you know they can listen to you?



Not only is Alexa listening when you speak to an Echo smart speaker, an Amazon employee is potentially listening, too.

Amazon employs a global team that transcribes the voice commands and feeds them back into the software to help improve Alexa's grasp of human speech so it can respond more efficiently in the future, Bloomberg reports .

Amazon reportedly employs thousands of full-time workers and contractors in several countries, including the United States, Costa Rica and Romania, to listen to as many as 1,000 audio clips in shifts that last up to nine hours. The audio clips they listen to were described as "mundane" and even sometimes "possibly criminal," including listening to a potential sexual assault.

In a response to the story, Amazon confirmed CNN Business that it hires people to listen to what customers say to Alexa. But Amazon said it takes "security and privacy of our customers' personal information seriously." The company said it only annotates an "extremely small number of interactions from a random set of customers."

The report said Amazon doesn't "explicitly" tell Alexa users that it employs people to listen to the recordings. Amazon said in its frequently asked question section that it uses "requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems."


https://www.nbc26.com/news/national...g-to-you-alexa-is-and-so-are-amazon-employees

 

[Rodcx500z]

She is the only woman I know who do'es what she is told

 

[Arcs]

Alexa and every other woman is banned from my house - they don't drink proper beer

 

[MyQul]

Sinister isnt it?

 

[Arcs]

I really can't believe how lazy people have become. If I want to listen to say (muuuh to some) the sisters of mercy then I will do so via controlling my personal computer PC. Handing over my property to an AI or any other related computer program seeing I did study computer science at the University of Northumbria - old Newcastle Poly, seems wholly wrong to me. This is my pooter and I will use it as I see fit and not hand it over to an AI of any sort ffs!! Some people love this idea, personally I think it an abomination but that's just old school me

 

[marshbrewer]

Yesterday, after visiting Leeds General, I asked Siri to show me the directions to Haribo World, as a treat for the kids. She tried to guide me to the one in Turkey. So I asked for directions to Haribo Land Pontifract. So she asked me if I wanted information in agricultural land in Nebraska.

It's my Lincolnshire dialect, she just doesn't understand.

 

[Gulpitdarn]

So we can assume that Samsungs Bixby and OK Google are the same? (and Siri)

 

[Chippy_Tea]

So we can assume that Samsungs Bixby and OK Google are the same? (and Siri)

I was going to check that before I posted but didn't have time, I assume they all work the same so someone will have the ability to listen.

 

[MmmBeer]

My TV (Samsung) has a voice control function, which I have heard can be monitored by the manufacturer, stopped using that function after that. The most worrying are the apple phones that allow private photos to be accessed by the manufacturers.

 

[BarnBrian]

I set one up for an old lady who really struggles to walk, she can turn a light on in each of her rooms just by asking Alexa, she thinks it's fantastic. I can definitely see the benefits in these sort of cases.

 

[MyQul]

I set one up for an old lady who really struggles to walk, she can turn a light on in each of her rooms just by asking Alexa, she thinks it's fantastic. I can definitely see the benefits in these sort of cases.

I believe there are lots of benefits. But at what price? Social media has benefits but the UK's young people are going through a mental health crisis. A large part can apparently be attributed to social media.

I'm a smart phone luddite, and dont have one

 

[PhilBrew]

She is the only woman I know who do'es what she is told

... that's the rhetoric that the purveyors of these devices want you to believe ... but you'd have to be VERY naïve to fail to recognise that they have an "agenda" ...

It's my Lincolnshire dialect, she just doesn't understand.

... it's very nice of you to give the device the benefit of the doubt, but isn't it just as likely that those results came up because the owners of the Turkish Haribo World and some Nebraskan agricultural real estate agent paid more to have their results delivered to you, than the place you wanted to go?

Cheers, PhilB

 

[simon12]

Any microphone in any device connected tot he internet has potential to be hacked to listen to you what makes alexa different is that the device its self can't tell what you saying so it has to transmit everything it hears to amazons computers to see if you said the word alexa and its known to record things that there staff listen to to improve the system. Also to note there staff have listened to peoples love life and rows https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/96116...***-rowing-swearing-and-sharing-medical-news/ . On the radio yesterday there was discussion about how its NHS info gave very different answers based on how questions are phrased.

 

[Norfolk79]

Alexa? I thought his name was Trevor?



(Note Contains swearing so probably not suitable if you've got speakers on your computer at work!)

 

[user 18729]

I think our Echo is a great bit of kit. We only really use it for playing music or adding things to a shopping list. If an amazon employee wants to listen to me rambling on to the girlfriend about brewing, or why i need more fishing gear then they can carry on!

More concerning is Hauwei having access to the 5G network. Another one of Mrs May’s triumphs

 

[Clint]

I have a Huawei phone...I get blank txt from "unknown sender"...can't block it or stop it shop knowns nothing about it. I can delete them and I think they disappear after a while. They must know slot about my brewing and cooking attempts by now.

 

[Leon103]

I have one. Never thought I would need one but listen to a lot more music and a greater variety of radio stations now.
Also it does more that music and the kids also use it.
Yes fully aware it can listen but so does every smart phone and most apps on devices. It's the world we live in. I have nothing to hide. Ps I hope the Amazon employees understand my welsh

 

[Hopperty]

think anyone who knowingly has any of these eavesdropping / listening devices in their home are mad. I don't have a smart phone either and double check any modern device that comes home can't listen. Seriously weird giving up on your privacy

 

[Chippy_Tea]

@Leon do you have any proof employee's of any company can use a smart phone to listen to conversations when the phone is in standby?

@Hopperty i agree although anyone listening to our conversations would get bored very quickly what about security you may be discussing Bank account details passwords etc to me it's just wrong.

 

[Covrich]

My (soon to be Ex) wife has an alexa and most of it is used for music.. I just play spotify through my latop..

That being said smartphones are just as guilty for the listening thing the amount of times we have had random conversations and then you open your phone and get said items advertised to you.. I think they are all at it.