
Anonymous Amazon worker says they listen to unrecognized Alexa recordings - jgroszko
https://twitter.com/girlziplocked/status/1085945913003118595
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stevenicr
wasn't there a recent article showing that (now owned and run by amazon (?),
Ring video cameras doing something similar, with ukraine "tech's" watching
people's video feeds and tagging things?

I wonder how often bedroom talk is heard with these things. I would imagine
there are sometimes exciting and sometimes distressing things heard with some
of the audio clips.

There should be some transparency with this - a monthly message about "X
number of audio clips were reviewed by humans to make our thing better" -

Isn't there some way to listen to the audio captured by your Alexa? Would be
nice if there was an indicator next to some of them saying "inaudible" or
"sent to human for review"

You could crowdsource and get end users to help make it smarter by clicking to
add a note about what they were trying to get the thing to do even.

Either way transparency - make the info available to the end user easily.
Toggle option to turn off notifications, and toggle to turn off "send my data
to humans to make it better" would be nice as well.

I am sure most people won't care, but there are plenty who engage in
"alternative" lifestyles who would likely not want their amazon device sending
audio to humans they do not know.

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londons_explore
All the tech companies do this. I know someone who transcribes Siri recordings

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monkeydreams
So do I. Well, they did. Apparently listening to kids swearing and insulting
Siri interspersed with the odd bout of assault and people trying to get Siri
to call the police does finally get to you.

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HocusLocus
HA! Another one of my short stories foretelling the future that came true.
This one was about TVs that rolled out features of voice commands and
gestures. I envisioned that they'd run against the limits of technology and
just staff a room full of... people.

SECOND SHIFT

They are gathered in the Control Room where hand gesture snapshots and voice
command packets converge. There are speakers everywhere emitting sharp
mechanical, animal and human sounds. Small blurry photos taken from thousands
of TV cameras float on a giant screen. Some people are standing in front of
their TVs trying to find the actual controls (hidden in a hinged compartment)
and their faces and giant eyeballs fill the frames.

The people who work in this room exist in a brief timeless moment that
continues forever, in which countless desperate people are trying to control
their TVs with gestures and voice commands without success. Properly executed
transactions are logged by the cloud but repeated failures, especially if the
algorithm detects angry or anxious voices, are routed here. The Corporation
decided that to improve customer experience, real people would staff rooms
like these and try to make sense of the commands as a last resort, issuing
instructions back to the TVs as best they can.

More than half of the images and sounds are not people trying to operate their
TVs however. There is a cacophony of domestic arguments, screaming puppies and
wailing children, laughter, someone banging on pots and pans. The employees'
eyes dart back and forth, their ears straining to detect some coherent voice
command directed at the TV. There! A drunken voice murmurs "off dammit".
Fingers tap on a console and OFF command is sent. Sigh of relief, perhaps
we'll meet our quota this shift. Then a low growl rising to a scream and a
woman's voice: "You never cared about me! Just leave me alone and get a
fucking job!" Fingers tap again and a command is sent that will distract them
by playing a loud Samsung demo loop showing happy young people leading an
active lifestyle. That is good medicine and maybe it will help, but it helps
meet quota. Small child facing camera in tears repeating something indistinct.
Is that 'two' and 'tree'? Tap command set channel 23, hope it's OK for
children.

Everyone in the room is quietly thinking... what were they thinking. Once upon
a time people learned how to control their own TVs and once they learned they
taught others, even small children. Now everyone is faced with the task of
training machines for voice and you can see how much wasted energy and anguish
results from it. They pity the elderly who were given these sets to make their
lives easier... and everyone all gathered on the first quiet excited day and
everything worked perfectly. Then the kids left and a fan was turned on in the
room blowing air into the microphone, and from then on those in the Control
Room see an old man alone in a room, in tears, shouting some command obscured
by the wind. Two technicians gather for this one, debating what to do. It is
decided they will make the TV cycle through channels slowly until they see his
expression change. But it never does, perhaps he is tormented by something
else.

Then the shift is over, and the next set of employees enters the Control Room.
We are now approaching the late hour of peak alcohol, when children are gone,
voices are slurred and TVs are sometimes knocked over. It will be a long
night.

