Privacy is a worry. Where is the intelligent voice?

The November 17 news, according to foreign media reports, last week, Amazon released a new virtual assistant echo, similar to Apple Siri and Google Now. The product is built with speakers and a microphone to capture the voice of the user, and is connected to the cloud through a 24-hour monitoring of the user's activities to continue to learn from. The ultimate goal is to completely think what users want to do service. So the question is, do you want convenience or privacy for more and more advanced virtual assistants into our lives?

Amazon does not show how echo will protect your privacy on its product homepage. For example, your questions about it and the commands you enter into it will be handled. Amazon's introduction focuses on how it will listen to your every move, speculate on what you need to buy, tell you the weather or play a song you like.

Canadian Ontario Prov. teacher Matty Erkins is very interested in this product, "The Echo of Amazon." A little sci-fi, a little creepy, but I'd like to install one in my class. "Elkins's current students are from grade six or seven, and his students can use echo to find information, or use Google to search for a historical fact, like using a dictionary to find a word. Echo will save "a lot of time." He says he has used Apple's Siri assistant in class for the same reason.

The cost of this convenience, of course, is that Amazon will receive all the information and know all the questions and activities of his and his students, thereby using this information to better sell things to them. But like many other consumers. Elgin said he was willing to accept the price.

The technology industry is constantly introducing smart products and requiring consumers to make choices between convenience and privacy. The GPS chip in the user's smartphone can help the user find a nearby restaurant, but it can also expose your location. The webcam on the user's laptop allows users to have video with friends and family, but can also be spied on by illegal intruders. Now, the default settings for new virtual assistants, such as Echo, Siri, and Google, are 24 hours to open the microphone so that it can be awakened at any time, but that means you can hear everything you do and say and do.

But of course you can make another choice to throw all this stuff in the trash. As consumers continue to make concessions, the space they are not listening to is getting smaller. Online Consumer privacy tool Abine's co-founder and CTO Andrew said, "before, you had to touch someone else's room to know what they were doing." Now they can visit our personal lives just by moving their fingers. ”

But technology companies say the risks are worthwhile and they can be trusted. Amazon's spokesman said that all of the echo-related user information kept by Amazon was tightly protected, and that the security of its servers was impeccable. Any recordings it obtains are bound to the user account to complete the personalized service for the user.

Hibernation doesn't mean listening is over.

According to Amazon's FAQ page, the Echo microphone does not send the user's voice to the internet anytime, anywhere. Echo only starts recording and connects to the Internet when it hears the "wake" keyword, such as "Alexa" or "Amazon".

Amazon says the speech recognition feature used by EHCO will only store user voice on the device. When Echo wants to send information to the cloud, the ring light at the top of the device will light up. The user can then choose to manually turn off the microphone. In addition, users can delete any Amazon-stored data. But the company warns that "this may reduce the user experience." ”

Google and Apple provide similar systems on their Android and iOS devices, and the wake-up key is "Ok,google" and "Hey Siri." Microsoft Xbox's video game console also has a similar response function, with the keyword "Xbox".

As Amazon says, Apple's Siri also says it will not send any data to the Internet during hibernation. When instructed, the data is sent to the Internet, but the corresponding protection mechanism checks the user's identity. For example, when Siri is turned on, your iphone or ipad creates random identifiers that the server does not know which user is asking. Google's voice assistant service works roughly the same way.

Getting smarter, more scary.

Even if our devices don't have 24 hours to record all of our data, consumers should be careful, says Jeremy, a technician at the Electronic Frontier Foundation for privacy oversight. "With enough data, Amazon can put a lot of information together and analyze it," he said. You may not realize that you have given Amazon quite important information. For example, if Echo can recognize different sounds, it might tell Amazon how many different people have spoken to it and speculate how many people live in your house. Or, if you ask about the weather somewhere, Amazon may know where your destination is. ”

But this worrisome situation is actually one of the selling points of the technology industry. Amazon says Echo's ultimate goal is not just to answer questions, or to update the shopping list. If Echo can understand the reason behind your question, it may eventually be able to guess the product you need before you ask.

The Product information page shows that "Echo is getting smarter, and the more you use Echo, the more it adapts to your way of speaking, vocabulary, and personal preferences." ”

At the beginning of the article the teacher Elkins that Amazon was ultimately hoping to make more money out of its own data. But as long as he gets some payback, he's not impressed. Not everyone will feel the same way, which is why you should know who is listening and decide whether to accept it.

Elkins added, "It's a trade-off, I'd like to check Google ads to use Google search for free." I'm willing to let Amazon send me directional ads if they can bring some of the latest technology to me. ”

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)