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Comment by thfuran | Hacker News Reader

>Voice-first devices are long overdue.

Sure, that's not really anything that anyone disagrees with. It's the acceptance of data collection and exfiltration that is odd.

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I would disagree. I despise voice interfaces and despite working for one of the major tech companies that build these devices and interfaces, I use exactly zero. I do trust my employer to do it correctly based on the processes I witness every single day, but I don't own any because I don't like voice interfaces. Remote control on my phone, sure. Clicking the button to change a song, sure. But no voice, thanks.

You dislike the very idea of voice interfaces or the current state of voice interfaces?

Maybe a naive question, but how are they any worse than having phones with non-transparent hardware/radio drivers in your living room? We seem to have accepted that risk, and even carry phones around everywhere.

We use smartphones for the same reason we don't avoid any non-free software like Stallman: a huge amount of additional possibilities. But what Alexa, Siri etc. offer is just a different way to use a limited set of existing features, in exchange for a much higher risk of a privacy breach.

Everyone needs to draw a line somewhere, I just don't see a reason to use voice assistants, definitely not with internet connectivity and where the company keeps all recordings for some reason.

They keep all recordings because they train their voice recognition off them. GOOG-411 kept all recordings too, for the same reason, as do hundreds of other services, but I don't recall anyone caring about them.

Google gives you a UI to view and delete your recordings and suddenly they're monsters.

Has anyone on HN put their phones into Airplane mode with WiFi on and then had wireshark tracking all outgoing packets from the wifi devices in their home?

To see exactly what outbound connections were made by which device and which app when either device was being actively used, or laying dormant?

This is how it was discovered in the UK that SmartTVs were sending viewing data....

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