One is the fear of the possible consequences of something you know - with a voice assistant, you know you are being recorded and the recordings are sent somewhere. 'Is furby spying on me' is a vague suspicion but it's not (for most people with the fear) based on any known facts about the furby.
Unknowns are inconsistent with assurance. It’s rational to reject unknowns if you prefer assurance.
If you’re the NSA and you need your security assured, you’ll absolutely balk at having novel machines with recording equipment and unknown possibilities placed around your office.
Unknowns translate to unknown consequences. For a risk-averse agent, I don’t see a meaningful difference between the unknown consequences of technology you understand and unknown consequences of technology you don’t. Sometimes understanding a technology means the unknown consequences can be bounded more precisely, and you might be okay with those bounds once you have them, but that’s not always true.
I don't think you read my comment fully, the Furby thing was real, based on known facts, that were trumpeted by the manufacturer.
The idea the Furby was "[not] real" persisting after reading the comment, is probably why it seemed like I was saying the voice assistants don't record voice.
I read the comment and explained why I don't think it's the fear of the same thing. Maybe you didn't read my comment fully!
A Furby didn't have the capacity to meaningfully spy on you. You could be afraid that it actually does but it didn't. A voice assistant is already, in a sense, actually spying on you and you know that - the manufacturer tells you upfront. These aren't the same kind of fear.
The Furby manufacturer told you upfront:
- it listened all the time
- it learned to speak, word by word, via your speech
The first comment, 10 comments up, was specifically written to provide that context: the Furby manufacturer was up front about spying.
Working with you, and steel-manning your contributions:
- You're trying to explain a distinction you see between local data processing and remote data processing. i.e. a microphone in a room recording you isn't spying, but a microphone with a data connection is "in a sense, actually spying" on you "meaningfully".
- example: "the Furby didn't relay audio data anywhere other than the Furby, and I'd like to point out the voice assistant does - your comment intends to highlight the Furby listened, but it only listened locally. Mentioning voice assistants and using them in an analogy may give a reader the understanding voice assistants process data locally, like Furbys"
