Maybe I'm paranoid, but isn't it obvious how the whole Home Speaker story ends? "We're not spying on you, we're learning your behaviors to offer a better experience!"
>We're not spying on you, we're learning your behaviors to offer a better experience!
Okay I guess that makes sense, I like when stuff is designed well around what I actually want from it, this will help in that, cool!
>We're not spying on you, we're just going to report you to the police if our ML algorithm detects a child screaming for their life
Wow okay, that kinda seems like crossing a line, but I guess it makes sense and is going to be good to protect kids
>We're not spying on you, we're just going to lower your reputation on x/y/z service if we hear racial slurs
Uh, I get where that's coming from, but this is clearly spying. Well, a private company can do what they like I guess, and its understandable, who other than racists wouldn't want less racists online.
>We're not spying on you, we're just going to let your insurance company know if we hear you coughing
Woah okay what the fuck
>We're not spying on you, we're just going to block you from x/y/z service if your political views differ from our CEO and put out a warning to services provided by other companies.
Hey what the - I mean, wow what a great update. goes in seperate private room WHAT THE FUCK I NEED TO GET RID OF THIS
>We're spying on you, we're just going to arrest you if you will not comply. Don't worry about what law you're charged under, we just blackmailed the police and those who tried to protest got arrested, our company policy is your local law now.
What a great update, thanks awesome [super evil company name here] developers and all employees, what great work they do! internally oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god
Of course this goes way to the extreme, but that's my point, this is the kind of seed that makes that stuff possible. Doesn't mean its absolutely evil, but the potential is there.
also reminds me of a parent tweeting about how her child thinks of Alexa as another person in the house, kids are growing up with every aspect of their life fully integrated with spyware-as-a-service
"We have the brightest minds of today trying to figure out how to get people to click ads on the Internet" https://gizmodo.com/senators-urge-ftc-to-investigate-manipul...
There is also some interesting circuitry around the mic itself- the keyword activation chip essentially has control over the mics- they buffer input until they hear the codeword ('alexa') and then activate the main circuitry and dump the buffer into it. The upside to this is that software can't turn the mic on by itself- the chip needs to help. This isn't completely perfect though as once the software has been given control it can keep that control forever (with the caveat that lights would be on).
It's possible to use technology to our advantage without having to sacrifice privacy, we just have to demand it (and, as we all should have learned from Therac-25, hardware limits are preferable over software).