"Home listening/surveillance convenience devices": Alexa, Siri, OK Google, and all that:

f00l went on a bit of a rant said
9

I messed with Alexa for a bit. Then decided I didn’t want Amazon listening to me. Also had never used it except testing it as a novelty. So I disconnected the echo from my account and sold it.

Have never used Siri for general purposes. Same with ok Google.

Once in a while I dictate text on my phone, usually some address for Google maps to locate for me. To initiate this, I hit a mic image in the keyboard. I don’t use a spoken command.

Hopefully my phone is not listening or “calling home” with samples of everything I say within range.

These companies are known to keep speech samples. Some if them are known to share speech samples with third parties.

If they claim these speech samples cannot be tied to a particular account or individual, do you believed that?

There is no way to known for certain that they don’t record everything spoken within range and keep samples of that.

I regret being weak-willed enough to sometimes - rarely - use speech-to-text on my phone. I don’t want to give these companies carte blanche to listen.

Why are so many of you willing kinda eager to have this tech in your lives? Aside from the fun of playing with it, do you gain real benefit?

I’m differentiating here between convenience tech and security systems. Bit I also wouldn’t want an indoor security system that recorded audio.

I think I just wouldn’t want an indoor “recording security system”.

I suppose indoor infrared movement monitors and the like would be ok.