Voice Assistants Will Be Difficult To Fire (wired.com)

mirandakatz writes: As voice assistants crop up left and right, consumers are facing a decision: Are you an Alexa? A Google Assistant? A Siri? Choose wisely -- because once you pick one voice assistant, it'll be difficult to switch. As Scott Rosenberg writes at Backchannel, "If I want to switch assistants down the line, sure, I can just go out and buy another device. But that investment of time and personal data isn't so easy to replace... Right now, all these assistants behave like selfish employees who think they can protect their jobs by holding vital expertise or passwords close to their chests. Eventually , the data that runs the voice assistant business is going to have to be standardized."

Comments

Not going to happen..

[sqorbit]

The companies are not going to be at all accepting of a standard. The only real edge they will have over each other is what services and accounts they are tied too. The assistants are all going to have the same features. If you use Google accounts and services, you'll stick with Google. What's going to happen is the consumer will get screwed and if they want to use Google for services, Amazon for retail and Apple for entertainment they will have to buy three different devices.

Re:Not going to happen..

[itamihn]

The EU might force them to implementing interoperability standards, especially if one of them grows into a de-facto monopoly.

Isn't the problem obvious?

[Cajun Hell]

Dude, you're using a proprietary voice assistant. Of course its primary purpose is to lock you in. That's the purpose of all proprietary communications tools. This is a whole area of software where, from the user's point of view, it is utterly insane and self-destructive to be using proprietary software.

If you want/need to run proprietary software, stick to games. For anything important, it doesn't make sense to use any software that treats you like an adversary.

You aren't your enemy, so you shouldn't be paying to have your computer act as though you are.

(2017 and the above opinion is probably still considered controversial. Everyone knows it's true but some people feel compelled to pretend that common sense is too "inconvenient.")

My philosophy

[NEDHead]

If you can't fire them

Don't hire them

Don't use one at all in the first place

[Rick Schumann]

Face the facts: You're paying for the 'privilege' of having an always-connected surveillance device in your home (or several of them). You're feeding it your very perosnal information and somehow expecting that to stay private. You think when you 'mute' the microphones that it's not listening, but it likely is. I'm sorry to have to be so blunt about it but if you are buying one of these devices you are not at all being smart. The only smart move here is to never buy one in the first place. Seriously, ask yourself: why do you need one in the first place? Rhetorical question, you don't need one, you WANT one because it's a shiny toy. Now you'll tell me "it's convenient". Tough shit, your 'convenience' should never be placed higher on your list of priorities in life above your safety, and it is not safe to have one of these devices in your home, you are literally giving away the most personal and private information about your lives that you possibly could, and unless you literally unplug it's power supply when you're not actively using it, you are throwing away the last outpost of privacy in your lives: YOUR HOME, because it is always listening.

Stop being stupid, don't buy these things!

Re:Don't use one at all in the first place

[ffreeloader]

Yeah, it's called walking. It's been working ever since human being have existed. It has great health benefits, and it's free.

Re:Don't use one at all in the first place

[swb]

Isn't it just a matter of time before somebody loses a civil lawsuit or goes to jail based mostly on "assistant" recordings?

Eventually they will manufacture new markets for those based on always-recording models. Helping old people, kids, some other "safety" justification and people just get used to the idea that it's always recording and transcribing everything.

Before too long people will start suing Amazon/Google for *not* calling the cops, alerting the authorities, etc, when something bad happens in a monitored environment.

So these devices will end up with some kind of 911-like compliance requirement and if you have an argument with a housemate you wind up having the cops show up.

I really don't get why anyone has one of these things. It's literally a Black Mirror episode.

No need

[Moof123]

Seriously, go outside and go for a walk or something that actually makes you happier.

We went from stores full of stuff being too much of a hassle to drive to and needed things delivered to our doorstep. now it is too much of a chore to pull up a browser to order crap, so we get voice assistants to do it for us. How effing lazy are people? How hollow are their lives?

go ride a bike, walk in the woods, talk with a human, or almost anything else is better for you than holing up with Alexa or Siri to try and fill your void of an existence.

Voice assistants, job security is only temporary

[zmooc]

As of may 2018, in Europe the General Data Protection Regulation will come into effect. This effectively makes consumers owners of their data again. That includes requirements for explicit consent for very specific reasons as well as an explicit requirement for those processing such data to enable the consumer to download that data in an open and computer-readable format. Fines for non-compliance reach as high as 20 million euro or 4% of worldwide revenue, whichever is higher.