Privacy with Phones in the Future

Always on. Always listening?

Voice control is inconvenient

I’ve never understood the idealistic future that voice command envisions. If anything, it seems less convenient than pushing a button.

I have a Nest thermostat named Hallway, and now I can use an Amazon Echo to control it! Seemed cool, but it’s pretty cumbersome.

"Alexa, turn the Nest down to 75"
"Sorry, I didn't find nest"

Hm, maybe we should try using the thermostat name

"Alexa, change the hallway temperature to 75 degrees"
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."

"Alexa, change the HALLWAY temperature to 75 degrees"
"The AC is set to 75"

After that awknowledgement, I wait 20+ seconds for the fan to kick on. Nothing.

I open up the app on my phone, and it’s still set to 78. After 3 taps of the down arrow, the Nest kicks in.

Thanks for the “convenience”, Alexa.

Risk it for the Biscuit

There’s an element of risk to everything, but we have to gauge what level of risk is comfortable.

What reward do I want in exchange for the risk of Google, Amazon, or Apple snooping on all the conversations I’m having in my home?

Unless they’re paying my bills, there isn’t much they can offer to convince me to turn these on.

What am I missing out on by disabling voice commands?

Nothing really..? I can do most of those functions quicker with a few taps on my phone.

I really miss turning on my Xbox and TV with “Xbox, ON” though..

I know, I know, they say that they aren’t collecting information, but I don’t trust that. What if they ARE?

Hey Siri. OK Google. Bixby..

These words are being said all around the world, thousands [if not millions] of times a day.

Over the past few years, everyone started activating our digital assistants with voice control instead of a button.

This is a huge step towards getting the public’s approval for pseudo wire taps

The Pixel 2 was announced a few days ago, and one of the highlighted features was an ALWAYS-ON microphone that will listen for ambient music and pop a notification with the title and artist on your lock screen.

Did anyone ask for this feature? Probably not. But it was an opportunity that Google seized to get ahead of Siri and Bixby.

After that, I can only assume that the future versions of Siri and Bixby will have similar functionality. They already copied each other with convenience services that require location.

In the phone world, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS dominate the market. If both of them start including always-on listening functions, what’s left for the privacy conscious?

Can we trust that the “opt-out” or “disable” check boxes actually do what they say?