Smart speaker recordings reviewed by humans
Amazon, Apple and Google all employ staff who listen to customer voice recordings from their smart speakers and voice assistant apps.
News site Bloomberg highlighted the topic after speaking to Amazon staff who "reviewed" Alexa recordings.
All three companies say voice recordings are occasionally reviewed by humans to improve speech recognition.
But the reaction to the Bloomberg article suggests many customers are unaware that humans may be listening.
The news site said it had spoken to seven people who reviewed audio from Amazon Echo smart speakers and the Alexa service.
Reviewers typically transcribed and annotated voice clips to help improve Amazon's speech recognition systems.
Amazon's voice recordings are associated with an account number, the customer's first name and the serial number of the Echo device used.
Some of the reviewers told Bloomberg that they shared amusing voice clips with one another in an internal chat room.
They also described hearing distressing clips such as a potential sexual assault. However, they were told by colleagues that it was not Amazon's job to intervene.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Friday April 12 2019, @05:13AM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Friday April 12 2019, @05:29AM
I'd make a Clippy or OnStar joke here, but really feel like it would be insensitive.
However, you may be correct in that they may decide to offer home or office security services as a paid package at some point.
Amazon Echo can already tie into your home's lights, sensors, cameras, and they know your Amazon product delivery schedules. They might notice a package being stolen off your porch or something and notify you if the package they just dropped off was just taken away.