Alexa, please stop spying on me.
Just read this rather unnerving article at Gizmodo. It begs the question: Since Alexa - and all other AI assistants out there - are always listening, waiting for the commands, are they also always recording the last seconds/minutes of everything it hears?
I understand that the often small devices can’t yet have everything they need inside, so our voice commands have to be sent to a far away server to be processed before sending back the correct response or action. They should only start sending our voice once we “start a conversation” by speaking a particular greeting such as “Hi Alexa” or “Hey, Siri”, right? Has anyone checked this is actually what happens? What about the amount of false positives? I know for a fact that Siri will think we are calling her every once in a while even when nothing remotely resembling “Hey, Siri” was spoken, and I heard similar stories with all AI assistants as well.
From Anker’s side, do they have any means of checking those false positives occurrences on their smart devices such as the Zolo Halo and Roav Viva? I know they can’t interfere with the process since it’s not their AI assistant, but maybe they have access to the information?
The future is bright. It’s also a little frightening. Our devices already collect a huge amount of information on us without our knowledge. Now they are gaining smart ears and eyes.
What would be a good solution to prevent cases such as this? Maybe a harder wake-up call, maybe another layer of confirmation, maybe even the need for a physical confirmation before some commands are performed?