> "Why do you think millions of people bought an Echo Dot or a Google Home? Not from YOUR perspective, but from the perspective of millions of people that seem to see value in this product?"
I have no problem with the product category Echo Dot and Google Home sit in, and can see why they make interesting gifts, my only issue is with the surveillance aspects of these devices.
Why do I think people bought them regardless of this issue? I'd suggest either surveillance wasn't forefront in their minds, or it doesn't bother them that much.
What's interesting to me is to compare these devices to Google Glass. There was a huge backlash about Google Glass as it was obvious people were being recorded without their consent. You had people wearing the devices getting called glassholes, and the devices being banned from certain venues. Compare that to the Echo Dot. The level of unwarranted surveillance with Google Glass and Echo Dot is pretty much the same, but because one is less visible than the other it doesn't get the same level of backlash. Is there something about audio surveillance which makes it more socially acceptable than video surveillance? If a future version of Amazon Echo came with a camera that watched your actions, would that get people to see the downsides of these devices? I'm not sure.
Night and day difference. With Google glass, you're bringing a stealthy, concealed video camera into public spaces like restrooms, where the guy using the urinal next to you has no idea if you're recording him or not.
With smart home devices, you put a microphone on private property that you already own, and it needs to be connected to an AC outlet. It's not a public space.
Meanwhile, most seem to have no problem carrying smartphones on them 24/7, which have the same capability of recording microphone input, but in public spaces disconnected from an AC outlet.
The faux outrage at surveillance is fairly hypocritical, if you ask me.
> Meanwhile, most seem to have no problem carrying smartphones on them 24/7, which have the same capability of recording microphone input, but in public spaces disconnected from an AC outlet.
I never understood using this as an argument in favor of always listening devices. Just because someone is invading your privacy in one way, doesn't mean you should just open the floodgates and let everyone invade your privacy. It is possible to be outraged at both, while being required to use one or the other.
I agree, if you are the type of person that refuses to use a smartphone on anti-surveillance principals, however, the same people that say they would never buy a digital assistant have one on their phones already.
My point is that those can be two different things, and it's possible to be upset at both. I have to have a smartphone for work, but that doesn't mean I am not outraged by the fact that I can't find one that is not a surveillance device. The day that a quality open-source smartphone becomes available, I'll buy one.
But in the meantime, since I have to have a smartphone, you are arguing that I should just get any device that listens without regard for privacy. That doesn't make any sense.
>The level of unwarranted surveillance with Google Glass and Echo Dot is pretty much the same, but because one is less visible than the other it doesn't get the same level of backlash.
This is a bug in human programming. I think it stems from far too many people not caring about potential, regardless of likelihood, and instead only caring about what happens. Similar to a gamblers fallacy in bad statistical reasoning (if it hasn't happened yet, then it won't happen), combined with a few other cognitive biases that allow a person to ignore events they don't see the direct cause and effect of.
The end result is that as long as the privacy invasion doesn't appear to be a privacy invasion, people will be okay with it. And given their past choices, they'll be more willing to be okay with the privacy invasion when it does go bad, instead blaming it on some other factor (such as one particular company caught abusing it, instead of the overall trend).
Companies are learning how to exploit this, and with technology increasing faster than social ability to handle the technology (such as why video recording and audio recording treated different legally), this is going to put a damper on the future.
You absolutely nailed it. I think it has to do with human psychology. Anything similar to spectacle is easily connected to being watched (literally) while even the amount of (useful) data collected by an always on microphone could relativity high. Maybe for a privacy advocate, the only possible way to bring awareness as equivalent as is to make people understand and believe that it sits and is always listening during day and night (unlike the glass which is on only when worn)
No, he didn't. How do you justify carrying a smartphone with an always listening microphone into shared public spaces (many listen for wake words now), but get hung up on having a microphone in your private residence?
Google has a horrific track record on privacy, but Amazon knows who their customers are, and would never do anything to violate their trust. With Amazon, you're the customer, with Google, you're the product.
> "How do you justify carrying a smartphone with an always listening microphone into shared public spaces (many listen for wake words now), but get hung up on having a microphone in your private residence?"
I've preordered this phone, which mitigates against this type of surveillance by the use of switches for turning off hardware devices like the camera and the microphone (and by making the software stack as open source as it can be):
I also currently use one of the few smartphones without a front facing camera, which only cuts out one form of surveillance but does help.
So whilst I'm putting up with a temporary invasion of privacy for now whilst I wait for the Purism 5 to be released, I'm not passively accepting surveillance from one device whilst criticising another.
I have no problem with the product category Echo Dot and Google Home sit in, and can see why they make interesting gifts, my only issue is with the surveillance aspects of these devices.
Why do I think people bought them regardless of this issue? I'd suggest either surveillance wasn't forefront in their minds, or it doesn't bother them that much.
What's interesting to me is to compare these devices to Google Glass. There was a huge backlash about Google Glass as it was obvious people were being recorded without their consent. You had people wearing the devices getting called glassholes, and the devices being banned from certain venues. Compare that to the Echo Dot. The level of unwarranted surveillance with Google Glass and Echo Dot is pretty much the same, but because one is less visible than the other it doesn't get the same level of backlash. Is there something about audio surveillance which makes it more socially acceptable than video surveillance? If a future version of Amazon Echo came with a camera that watched your actions, would that get people to see the downsides of these devices? I'm not sure.