If they did the voice recognition locally, there wouldn't be a privacy issue. And that would arguably be far cooler technology.
Exactly. Cloud-powered voice assistants are thoroughly uninteresting and a huge privacy concern. Local, 100% in-device processing should be the future and if that were the case this link would indeed be "alarmist"
If the community did not value this viewpoint, you would not see it on the front page. Perhaps your disdain is misdirected.