this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 10 months ago (4 children)

If Alexa, Cortana and Siri aren't always listening, how can they pick their names out of conversations?

[–] elscallr@lemmy.world 44 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Want an honest answer?

Onboard are >=2 bits of code. At least one of those is a specific system trained to recognize a "wake word". This specific system (ostensibly) doesn't send anything to an outside party. Its entire job is to recognize one wake phrase: Alexa, Ok Google, or Siri, and then if that wake phrase is used it responds and tells the second system to listen. As you can imagine, this is a pretty easy job to get right 80% of the time. So that can be put on a chip. So then it does its job, and it's the second system that sends everything to an internet service for whatever reason.

[–] diffcalculus@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

I didn't ask for honesty!

[–] milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I'd love to have this properly audited sometime. I'd slap like to think that we're generally protected from big companies doing unethical and unjust things to us, by law, ... but nah

(That's not to say I don't believe this explanation; the second half of my comment was just an addendum.)

[–] joe@lemmy.knocknet.net 24 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There are actually 2 processors in the devices. 1 that constantly listens for a keyword, Al la, Alexa, Hey Google. When it hears it it quickly spins up another "computer" that then sends your voice back and forth to the servers for processing and response. It's part of the reason that the listen word isn't easily customized.

[–] filcuk@lemmy.zip 11 points 10 months ago

It still stores the name triggers, even incorrect matches (last I checked, which was years back).
The recordings can be played back from account history.
The one time I looked at some random, it was mostly snippets of my conversations with friends.
Creepy.

[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de -4 points 10 months ago

the makers of these things always say that, but I guarantee that long winded explanation is bullshit. Maybe there's even hardware in there that does those things, but even so, they're always listening, recording and submitting everything you say to their maker. Primarily for targeted ads and targeted content of other sorts...but also to snitch on you if the cops accuse you of something.

[–] Cqrd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On top of what the other person said, they are always listening. Amazon has provided audio from Alexa for the police