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Smart Speaker Recordings Reviewed by Humans

posted by chromas on Friday April 12 2019, @05:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the ceiling-cat-is-watching-you-masturbate dept.

takyon writes:

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.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @08:01PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @08:01PM (#828725)

    And yet consumertards insist on brining these things in to their homes

    Those are the smart consumers, that are brining their smart speakers! Makes them last well into the early spring, and can be used as rations for sled dogs, if they are very very hungry.

    Now the Norse, however, have been soaking their smart speakers in lye, and then can be heard calling out, "Hey, Lutefisk, play NPR!"

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +3  
       Funny=3, Total=3
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @10:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @10:56PM (#828778)

    And yet consumertards insist on brining these things in to their homes

    Those are the smart consumers, that are brining their smart speakers! Makes them last well into the early spring, and can be used as rations for sled dogs, if they are very very hungry.

    Now the Norse, however, have been soaking their smart speakers in lye, and then can be heard calling out, "Hey, Lutefisk, play NPR!"

    Where's my '+1 spelling nazi' mod when I need it?