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Amazon's Alexa Is Coming To an Office Near You (axios.com)
Amazon announced today that it's bringing its voice assistant into a range of business settings, big and small, like hotels and co-working spaces. From a report: While people always think of Amazon as a consumer company, it has shown itself time and again to have larger ambitions. This move could help it expand tis business services beyond its already popular Amazon Web services. In an interview, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels said that exposure to the workplace will improve Alexa by exposing it to new types of conversations. "The kind of language we use in our offices is sometimes radically different from the more conversational things we do in our(homes)," he told Axios. Alexa "will greatly improve by being exposed to different kinds of statements or conversations."
In countries where employees have some privacy rights, this could expose employers to legal risks.
Any hotel using this will drive my business elsewhere.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER*
down with big brother
down with big brother
down with big brother
down with big brother
down with big brother
down with big brother
down with big brother
* and the only reason they all aren't "DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER" is that BB, in this case /., won't allow it!
Sorry Google, but Amazon appears to have become the thought leader in conversational AI. Has innovation at Google stagnated?
Yep. (sorry for the substance-void comment, but I don't have much else to add on the topic... privacy policies and corporate responsibility for the behaviors of these things seem to need a bit of work)
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Nothing like a huge corporate security leak.
What would be the rationale for putting Alexia into any business that would justify initial purchase and deployment costs? What about control of proprietary information? What about control of legally sensitive information?
I can see little signs appearing on walls in public places (like in California for cancer trigger warnings)
Warning
This area contains devices know to the state of California to remove your privacy rights.
the bates motel just has that crazy guy working there with the hole in the wall from the office to bathroom in room 1
I expect a spike in ultrasonic jammer sales if this happens.
And where is that cackling laughter coming from??
I'm eagerly waiting for that Alexa STIG already. It probably contains one word in a largest, government sanctioned font available: "NO!"
Instead of calling them "big brother", let's just skip right to the point and call them STALKERS.
Zero chance. Not happening.
Who the fuck thinks this sort of thing is a Good Idea?
Spying on your employees?
Possibly exposing your business practices to another business entity (who you may or may not be competing with)?
I'd think that this sort of thing is something only a raging dumbass would do...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The season of spell checking your posts
Wow, seriously, no one can think of some possibilities here?
"Alexa, file a helpdesk ticket about the WiFi not working."
"Alexa, we need more coffee for the break room. Order some Kopi Luwak."
"Alexa, laugh maniacally whenever Steve says 'development'."
"Alexa, please translate the last several minutes of the VP of Marketing's presentation into actual English."
"Alexa, it's cold in here, turn up the thermostat." *next cubicle over* "Alexa, it's hot in here, turn down the thermostat."
Indeed - I'll put one into our weekly program review meeting; the fucking Amazon server will explode...
The Clinton years are over. Get on with your life.
And it will laugh at you at the middle of the night
Google, Amazon, Apple are all missing the point.
Technologies like this are fantastic, but only if you can wall them off from the outside world, at least as far as sending information goes.
Put it all on a chip, provide incoming links only, and robust protection against injection type attacks. So, no sending info out, and no using outside info to affect inside systems.
Tough nut to crack, I know. But that's the ticket!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
What company would want this? The potential for abuse is way too high to risk it.
Playing the Who on Spotify.
First the business case doesn't exist. It's not needed or desired. Not to mention the boat loads of industry that just can't have something like this in their office at all. Financial industry, attorneys, medical, government. There I just ruled out 80% of the workforce.
Hotel lobby,maybe, and only as a novelty, but no place else in the hotel. And for what actual purpose would you use this spyware device?
This is fabulous! I can't wait to use Alexa to make appointments and meetings in Lotus Notes!
What serious business would seriously consider an always on surveillance device that eavesdrops on every conversation around them?
You may as well put up a big sign in your window that says, "Trade Secrets available to anyone who will listen!"
This is illegal in Germany, and probably all of the EU.
Plain and simple.
(There were several court cases, where employers used surveillance against their employers, and they all lost. SELLING out the surveillance to a third party, even if just for peanuts, like it is the case here, and even if you act like you weren't aware of it, and even if you caught employees doing bad things, is even more of a criminal offense. In Germany, you can't even legally record anyone in public without asking him first, unless you are from the press and can present a really good reason that will make the judge decide for freedom of the press. [The two laws are directly contradictory, and it's established to decide this on a case-by-case basis.] .... Oh yes, dear American vlogger in Germany, you have to ask too. [We'll usually be fine with it though, so just ask! :] )
I figure we have to put them in an ugly military case, make sure it's a hack job inside, and ask 100 times the price first. :)
CAPTCHA: guiltily (Hello NSA!)
We got an Amazon Echo at work to see if it's any use for business activities as it stands. First problem was that there's no way to configure a proxy server to gain access to Amazon (and other) remote servers, which is incredibly short-sighted of them.
Second issue is that an "obvious" business use is recording (and preferably transcribing) business meetings, but I was *shocked* that the Echo can't even take a simple voice note and record it for you for later access (never mind transcribing to text, which would be another essential feature).
As everyone has been pointing out here, everything the Echo does seems to go through Amazon's servers, so business confidentiality seems to be a major stumbling block to business acceptance. Heck, I can't even tell if the data goes out encrypted (without sniffing the network traffic) and is always stored encrypted.
1. It's great on your COMPETITION, and :)
2. it nicely weeds out the morons.
I'm all for going back to natural selection of the best, instead of what we have now, which is nearly the exact opposite.
As the old bash.org quote said: Let's take the warning labels off of everything, and let the problem solve itself!
lets make noisy working environments even noisier as well as creating chaos by having multiple users with no real way to link one device to one person.
It sounds like another company throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Another thing i dont get is that any task in a business environment that could be automated using voice commands could also be automated with the click of a button, that is what computers are for and most businesses already have a lot of them on hand.
C-suite people are going to love the sales pitches and ideas about how to use them, everyone else is going to hate them. Its one thing to invite one of these things in to your home, but to bring one of these into an office is just ridiculous and pie in the sky thinking.
1. A recording implies it is permanent. Because permanence is the problem. Because we have such a concept as forgiveness and having done your time. Otherwise, people will still hate you for that one stupid thing you said, 50 years later.
2. It is also only illegal if you pass the recording on to other people. E.g. you can take family pictures at the beach, but you can't post them online!
3. There is such a thing as an implicit contract, whenever you enter someone's premises. They usually hang their terms & conditions somewhere around the entry. In the case of cameras, it's the law, that you must hang a sign, warning of the recording, outside the recorded area. The German Rail (Deutsche Bahn) have tried to ignore that several times, and got sued for it every time. They only think they are above the law because they are so big and ex-government and “too big to be punished”. That's doesn't make their behavior legal.
4. People that, as part of their job, have themselves recorded, have a section about this in their contracts. (And even that can be illegal, as contracts are not above the law.)
5. In general, when it is obvious that you would be recorded in a situation, and you clearly choose to do it anyway, then that is an act of agreement, equal to saying you agree. (E.g. when there is a guy in the street, interviewing random people, and you walk up to him and start talking into the obvious microphone, you can't later say you didn't want it to end up in the news.)
So what's left of your argument, is equivalent to (the hyperbole) "But we've raped and enslaved for decades!", and you thinking "It's right because we did it before!" is a valid argument.
Please stay in whatever totalitarian dictatorship wasteland you're from.
As an InfoSec guy, there is NO WAY IN HELL any of these type of devices are getting into my building.
In fact, I think our next infosec newsletter will mention keeping these away from work-from-home spaces, as well
There goes corporate security.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
How else could they use complex algorithms to transform the voice to text? It has to be decrypted to do that.
Talking with Alexa in the room, is the same as talking with the entire Amazon tech staff in the room. Including the most low-level server admin.
Alexa, can you get everybody to SHUT THE FUCK UP?
I'm trying to do, you know, actual work here.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
not in my office it won't.
Alexa is a spy pure and simple. As has been said, any hotel that I stay at that has one of these things in my room loses my trade on the spot.
I will never ever use Alex, Siri or any other assistant. These bits of kit are Big Brother in all but name.
These spying companies are obviously living in an altered universe.
Then I am SO outta there. I already have to dodge and weave - and issue threats which I fully plan to make good on if push comes to shove - just to keep pictures of myself off of Facebook. If I so much as SEE an Alexa-based device or its equivalent, then I'm packing up my tools and walking out the door.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
activities, including hiring/firing decisions, details and plans for new products and services, personal details of employees spoken aloud within the HR department, etc?
What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Think you will ever be able to come uop with a product or service again and get it to market before some Chinese knock-off mysteriously shows up on Amazon.com for 1/1th the price (and with FREE SHIPPING!) ?????
This is an IQ test for corporate CEOs... many of whom will likely fail. If this shows up where YOU work, you'll have finally confirmed that your boss is the twin of the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert.