It's amazing how many tech people, like this author in this piece, still believe that their phone is constantly listening to you to target ads.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24224884-how-voice-d...
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/29/cox-caught-again-braggin...
I don’t trust my phone on a fundamental level. I also have mentioned things out loud and gotten ads afterward about them.
On the one hand, those two statements absolutely don’t prove that my phone is listening. Just because I don’t trust my phone doesn’t mean that it’s being used maliciously, and the ads I’ve seen might just be a coincidence.
On the other hand, those two statements together are definitely suggestive. They feel suspicious. It would be so easy for Apple/Google/Samsung to secretly listen and make a boatload of money by telling me a lie. Lord knows they’ve lied about other things.
So yeah, balance of evidence is that phones probably don’t do that. But don’t be surprised when people suspect that they do.
Also, it happened a few times I talked about some thing and an hour later it was talked about on broadcast TV. People over-fit on finding patterns.