As both a marketer and an Alexa...I always find this conversation compelling. My mother has an Alexa (ok, I guess two...) and I know when I go visit that thing will be barking constantly. It happens to my clients all the time. I'm a marketer so I know how much data and recording like this helps people like me do my job, I don't personally see an incentive to help Amazon or Google make more money off me.
I love the blocking sunglasses and the debate about disclosing you have a robot listening in the house, if I record a call with a client I always disclose and get confirmation to record...but with people being so blasé about the Alexa's & Siri's in their house, I'm not sure everyone thinks to be that thoughtful of other peoples digital footprint.
I can't imagine what its like to grow up these days, where you have a digital footprint you never consented to from the moment your parents post your ultrasound on Facebook. Spooky.
"My wife asked me why I spoke so softly in the house. I said I was afraid Mark Zuckerberg was listening! She laughed. I laughed. Alexa laughed. Siri laughed" - James Franco
We have Amazon Echos in most rooms of our house. They do indeed get confused and wake up at sounds that are not their wake word some times. Usually, it's either slightly annoying or slightly funny. When I first started reading this article, I wondered why people who were worried about being overheard didn't just turn off the microphones for privacy, or if they didn't trust the manufacturer, unplug the devices as desired. Or go all the way and just not have any smart assistants in their home. Then it hit me, I guess I'm a little slow tonight, that people are worried about privacy when they aren't in their own house. The part about replacing Welcome mats with Warning mats sort of clued me in. To be fair to myself, every other article I've read about privacy and smart speakers revolved around being spied on in your own home.
I don't often say anything that could cause more than slight embarrassment if it was to be printed on the front page of the local paper, but you'd better believe that, even without smart speakers, I'd be very careful where and when I said things more secret, or possibly dangerous, than that.
In a case like that, I would not trust the Bracelet of Silence. If there's enough at stake to have one, having one is not enough.
In the end, though, this becomes less of a concern about Alexa and her friends, and more about the expectations of privacy that we, as a society, can expect to have now, and in the future. I think that the days we can expect to go through public life anonymously are over. Nothing is going to bring that back. These gadgets are cool, but they are only a partial and temporary solution to a problem, that someday might not be seen as a problem anymore when all illusions of public privacy have been stripped away for years. Although I do not look forward to such a day, it is coming.
Which brings us back to the home. Can we hope for privacy in our own homes for the indefinite future? I certainly hope so. I may not need it, but it seems that it should be expected to have such privacy even if it means turning off the microphones in your devices when desired or simply not having devices with microphones in your house in the first place.
I don't see the day coming, at least not soon, when people will be compelled to have always-on microphones in their house for government ( or corporate) surveillance. I hope.
As both a marketer and an Alexa...I always find this conversation compelling. My mother has an Alexa (ok, I guess two...) and I know when I go visit that thing will be barking constantly. It happens to my clients all the time. I'm a marketer so I know how much data and recording like this helps people like me do my job, I don't personally see an incentive to help Amazon or Google make more money off me.
I love the blocking sunglasses and the debate about disclosing you have a robot listening in the house, if I record a call with a client I always disclose and get confirmation to record...but with people being so blasé about the Alexa's & Siri's in their house, I'm not sure everyone thinks to be that thoughtful of other peoples digital footprint.
I can't imagine what its like to grow up these days, where you have a digital footprint you never consented to from the moment your parents post your ultrasound on Facebook. Spooky.
"My wife asked me why I spoke so softly in the house. I said I was afraid Mark Zuckerberg was listening! She laughed. I laughed. Alexa laughed. Siri laughed" - James Franco
We have Amazon Echos in most rooms of our house. They do indeed get confused and wake up at sounds that are not their wake word some times. Usually, it's either slightly annoying or slightly funny. When I first started reading this article, I wondered why people who were worried about being overheard didn't just turn off the microphones for privacy, or if they didn't trust the manufacturer, unplug the devices as desired. Or go all the way and just not have any smart assistants in their home. Then it hit me, I guess I'm a little slow tonight, that people are worried about privacy when they aren't in their own house. The part about replacing Welcome mats with Warning mats sort of clued me in. To be fair to myself, every other article I've read about privacy and smart speakers revolved around being spied on in your own home.
I don't often say anything that could cause more than slight embarrassment if it was to be printed on the front page of the local paper, but you'd better believe that, even without smart speakers, I'd be very careful where and when I said things more secret, or possibly dangerous, than that.
In a case like that, I would not trust the Bracelet of Silence. If there's enough at stake to have one, having one is not enough.
In the end, though, this becomes less of a concern about Alexa and her friends, and more about the expectations of privacy that we, as a society, can expect to have now, and in the future. I think that the days we can expect to go through public life anonymously are over. Nothing is going to bring that back. These gadgets are cool, but they are only a partial and temporary solution to a problem, that someday might not be seen as a problem anymore when all illusions of public privacy have been stripped away for years. Although I do not look forward to such a day, it is coming.
Which brings us back to the home. Can we hope for privacy in our own homes for the indefinite future? I certainly hope so. I may not need it, but it seems that it should be expected to have such privacy even if it means turning off the microphones in your devices when desired or simply not having devices with microphones in your house in the first place.
I don't see the day coming, at least not soon, when people will be compelled to have always-on microphones in their house for government ( or corporate) surveillance. I hope.