The thing is it doesn't need to record anything (to spy on you).
Voice recognition is 'on' all the time as it needs to recognise 'keyword'. All you need then is simple transcription into text.
Voice recognition is 'on' all the time as it needs to recognise 'keyword'. All you need then is simple transcription into text.
Its certainly possible for Amazon/Google/Whoever to send your device a firmware update that turns it into an always-on microphone, but it doesn't do that by default
Not to say it's not a concern, but that's not really how these devices work – at least in the Alexa case. They're just matching for a specific hotword, rather than constantly performing speech-to-text (which is computationally expensive and done remotely). Think of it more like Shazam or the other audio fingerprinting services – you don't have to actually transcribe the text to understand if a particular word has been heard.