Posted on 04/14/2019 7:35:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Today's most creepily Orwellian story is about tech/retail giant Amazon. A Bloomberg story, picked up by Fox News, says that Amazon's Alexa talk-to-the-computer 'digital assistant' service, which a lot of us use, has a bunch of listeners-in on the other side. Far from talking to a machine, as you think you might be doing, you are offering up some reality-TV for the hipsters listening in. And lots of them like to pick up the conversations, the ones that amuse them, and share their recordings of with all their co-workers on some company bulletin board:
Here's the Fox writeup:
Alexa is like having your own personal assistant that never asks for a raise. The problem is she’s always listening – and so are thousands of Amazon workers, according to a report.
Teams stationed around the world listen to and transcribe recordings, then send them back into Echo’s software to erase the gaps in Alexa’s ability to understand speech, a report from Bloomberg said.
Sometimes the workers can even hear chatter in the background while Alexa is on but employees on the team are not authorized to speak about their work, Bloomberg reported.
The employees, who range from contract to full-time, reportedly sign nondisclosure agreements and listen to up to 1,000 audio clips per nine-hour shift.
Although Amazon reportedly has procedures in place for when potential criminal conduct is heard. Two workers in Romania told Bloomberg that they were told it isn’t Amazon’s job to interfere. In other cases, the workers said they sometimes use internal chatrooms to share recordings they find amusing.
That fourth paragraph is badly written with insufficient clarity (What the hell are they talking about?), so I went to find the Bloomberg report, which, to slap Fox's hands again,
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
When I lived in a garden apartment, we used to sit in the kitchen and overhear the arguments of the couple in the basement apartment through the hot-air ducts. It was funny for a while, but got old quick.
Set it up to turn lights on all over the house. Then when something goes "bump in the night", you turn 'em all on at once. If the intruder is human, you now have a clear target, if he doesn't take off.
You saved 60 bucks to get owned? Wow you are cheap.
you are correct cell phones are just as dangerous.
Are people really this naive?
Anyone who tells you something is free, is really telling you two things:
1: I am a liar.
2: I think you were stupid.
Aleaxa must keep one massive “Junior Ganymede Club Book”.
A key takeaway from this is also that the younger generation has an entirely different view of the value of privacy (and freedom). Privacy & freedom are inextricably linked, yet they have no understanding of that concept.
Ditto for some lazy members of our/my older generation. I will never *willing* barter my privacy for free stuff or convenience. Yet my BIL and his wife freely admit that because (in their minds) they have nothing to hide, their privacy is a good trade for so many hi tech conveniences.
Whether or not you have anything to hide is irrelevant to the innate value of privacy. It’s...none...of...”their”...damn...business.
You’ll be at the head of the line for the re- education camps.
Put your name on your luggage so we know how to get it back to you.
The showers are over there next to the big BBQ grills.
Be it individual or corporate business, there is so such thing as “free shipping”.
The cost of shipping is simply included (added to) the cost of the goods.
What did you pay for XX? Well it was $32 and $9 shipping.
What did you pay for XX? Well it was $41 and free shipping.
Yeah man, gimme that free shipping.
I’ll see you in the camps.
You raise a good point. We are entering uncharted waters with the now 30-year old Internet. The first Internet generation was raised on an immature, non-pervasive Internet not controlled by the near-monopoly behemoths. The second generation raised on the Internet will have completely different views of privacy and freedom than we all grew up with.
This is going to transformational for society in ways we cannot fathom. Just look at the speed that leftist fads and crazes (like trannies, "intersectionalism," and "gender dysphoria") sweep over the entire globe now. We used to be able to ignore and marginalize these things that were so far out of the mainstream that everybody thought they were just ridiculous and could be ridiculed into oblivion. Now they are globally pervasive overnight and ignite like wildfire in dry scrub brush.
The future certainly isn't going to be like the past. The best thinkers from 50 to 100 years ago, in their predictions of what future dystopias would be like, never really dreamed of how pervasive, global, instantaneous communications would upend literally everything.
Conservatives simply are not as good at using these new technologies and media as are the vanguard of the leftists pushing their insane radical ideas. It's a lot harder to push and promote "conserve what is good about our past" rather than "tear it all down." Conserving the past just doesn't rally as many troops to the cause.
You will have to explain what you mean. It isn't clear.
The younger generation has an accurate view of privacy: it doesn’t exist anymore. Hasn’t for at least 20 years. The internet, security cameras, big data, loyalty cards. Privacy is dead. And nobody even realized it was sick.
My Alexa gets to hear Rush and other loca! Conservative talk shows most days, ha.
What makes you think they haven’t already been doing this. In the story it say employees.
I have not read the full article, but I am betting 1000 to 1 that nowhere do they say where these employees are from or what nation holds the central control unit that is in control of this dept.
After all, I am sure google offers this service to their customers in many, many other countries arounds the world.
‘
Maybe the dept that controls this is situated in China.
Could be.
Hey Poindexter, I saved a hell of a lot more than $60 on our power bills this winter using the echo devices and accessories in the way that I described. It was very cold out... I estimate that we saved several hundred dollars. And it was very nice to arrive at a warmed up house at each location. There are other ways that I could probably have done this, but our schedule is highly variable and this was the cheapest way. Every echo device has been on some type of special, most of them cost me between $15 and $20 and the alexa enabled switches and outlets were all around $10 on sale, and they work with our cell phones as well as the echo dots.
Your arguments are based on a combination of ignorance and paranoia. If we were having a discussion about something that absolutely needed to be kept secret I would unplug the echo dot and put my cell phone in a different room. How does that make me owned?
And you are calling other people stupid? The device is called an echo, it uses Alexa, not Alexia, and it is from Amazon not Google. Maybe you just forgot the sarcasm tag?
Whatever!
I knew what it did.
They could call it “A Boy Named Sue” for all I give a crap.
People are still STUPID to putting them in their home!
I have got half a dozen of them spread between two homes and I find them very useful as I outlined in my previous posts. People who believe that Amazon has the storage capacity or inclination to record everything that is within range of the Echo devices are the ones who are “STUPID”. You and many others are rambling on and making judgments about something that you have demonstrated amply that you have no understanding of. It is mostly comical, but a little irritating that on a respected forum such as this one that people are so willing to proudly show off their ignorance.
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