News of Alexa

Heard on French radio on 12/29:

Alexa, the obedient butler for the 21st century

For those who use Alexa and similar voice-recognition systems, I listened to a programme on French radio this morning that explained that those systems are not fool-proof yet. Often, the automated assistant gets it wrong (it tries to work out the meaning of the command based on a statistical approximation built around earlier occurrences).

Apart from the issue of the hoovering of data -- is the data relating to you stored on a server somewhere? [we are told it is not the case] -- what there is, is human intervention in the background, allegedly.

There are call centres in countries such as the Philippines and Bangladesh where human operators are there to tweak the system and help Alexa understand what a given command is if Alexa cannot make sense of it. Apparently, those operators are paid a few cents per 'call' they sort out. (It applies to Alexa, Siri and others.)

So, when you talk to Alexa, potentially, and via Silicon Valley, you have an operator sitting on his or her bottom somewhere in Dacca or Manilla who is trying to work out whether you said 'butter' or 'button', whether you want to buy some 'paper' or 'pepper, or whether you asked for the 'heating' or the 'water heater' to be turned on. Etc.

Charming. I want those people to know what I eat, when I get up, what I buy in the supermarket, and much more.

BM

PS It is a moot point whether Alexa et al. can listen in on your every conversation, row and groan, in the sitting-room and elsewhere. Presumably, it is activated only when you talk to it. But I wouldn't bet on it. They must be having fun listening in to your conversations from Bombay or Tangiers: the pay isn't great, but at least it's fun to know how the rich live, in those wealthy countries far away... 😁