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

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: 4, Informative) by corey on Friday April 12 2019, @09:58PM (1 child)

    by corey (2202) on Friday April 12 2019, @09:58PM (#828758)

    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.

    Um, in Australia at least, I think this is illegal. If you are witness to a crime, you have a legal obligation to report it. Except if you're a confession Minister of course.

    Big Gray area anyway.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @11:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @11:04PM (#828784)

    Um, in Australia at least, I think this is illegal. If you are witness to a crime, you have a legal obligation to report it. Except if you're a confession Minister of course.

    We don't have that communist garbage here in the US! If you're not armed with a gun and ready to shoot at the slightest movement, it's your fault if you're a victim!

    And if you're a victim, you're worthy only of shame and derision!