Whether it’s being told to turn on the lights or asked a health question, the voice known as Alexa has embedded Amazon’s technology deep in the lives of hundreds of millions of people since the company first launched its interactive Echo smart speaker in 2014.
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But the multi-billion-dollar company’s increasingly ubiquitous Alexa technology — which is now compatible with more than 100,000 products — doesn’t just serve the customer: “Alexa is one more way for Amazon to gather extremely valuable data,†Meredith Whittaker, co-director of the A.I. Now Institute at NYU, tells FRONTLINE in this excerpt from the documentary “Amazon Empire.”
“And this data collection is extremely important to this business model. It’s extremely hard to do … convincing people to just deploy something like this in their home is— it’s a brilliant trick,†she says.
It’s one that’s helping Amazon in a quest to dominate the future — not just of commerce, but also artificial intelligence.
“They’re trying to move as intimately as possible and as quietly as possible into everyday life,†Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, says in the film. “Amazon wants to have the entire environment, essentially miked… All these intimacies, all this insight is being integrated, analyzed and integrated. That is an extraordinary kind of power that has never before existed.â€
On its website, Amazon says that its Alexa and Echo devices are designed to protect users’ privacy. Amazon’s head of devices, Dave Limp, disputes FRONTLINE producer James Jacoby’s characterization of them as “listening devices,†telling him the “wake-word†engine responsible for turning on an Echo via voice command is “not really listening; it’s detecting one thing and one thing only, which is the word you’ve said that you want to get the attention of that Echo.†Â
But once the device is awake and the blue light is on, it’s recording. “The problem,†says futurist Amy Webb, “is that we forget that it’s there.â€
For the full story, watch “Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos” in full starting Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 9/8c on PBS and online: https://to.pbs.org/2SH9uSj
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Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation, the Park Foundation, The John and Helen Glessner Family Trust, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation.
Alexa saved my life. I fell down a whole flight of stairs a few months ago and had NOBODY to help me. If it wasn't for Alexa calling an Ambulance for me, I would have died down there!
I never use Amazon, I think people should boycot it, they are childish, and female hating.complete losers actually.
Amazon sucks so bad, they think they are Kings, and they hate women,. They are predominately homosexuals that enjoy harassing women.
Just let the NSA into your life and listen too every thing you do. EVERYTHING!! Hell no.!! Privacy of your personal life isn't worth any dollar amount
Here we go! Paying our …Fu….lazyness with bills our freedom, and then we blaming on the cook ! Really? Do we really think is going to be fun or enjoyable (I just made up that word ,) a life doing nothing, or that every thing you use ok? …really? Then we gonna need a planet for each of us! Because no more competition, no more be better, no more goals, because like in a puzzle toy pieces your success is nothing more that others fails or not to do something, rude?C'mon …..can you image the bubble of weirdness these people has to be,once they know "Everything" about our humanity? My English sucks , so excuse me for my writing.
When everyone thinks a chip is being inserted in them with the covid vaccine but the listening device is really their phone and alexa and the use it freely. lol
Dave Limp is clearly conflicted. He should be.
Humans listening, sorry “detecting†what I am saying and dictating it unless I worked out how to opt out? How bout I must sign a witnessed contract to opt in ffs, wow, did not known this
This is creepy as hell! People are really dumb if they fall for this.
Amazon needs to be shut down!
How many tsp in a Tbl….seriously! Look it up in a cookbook or just use Google.
People better think twice before you have that wild weekend when the kids are at Grandma’s, and Big Daddy wants to take you on the kitchen table. Alexa won’t be the only one “turned on†lol.
it's funny how people bitched about huawei stuff spying on them when they literally put a listening device at will in their house
You can say it how ever you want, but the whole world calls it listening
“The detector is listening, not listening†🙄
Here's an idea……. DON'T BUY IT!!!!!!
Alexa, I’m to lazy and stupid to do anything myself, please do it for me
I should be more afraid of the phone I’m typing this on then Alexa. It doesn’t just listen in on me but track wherever I go and is watching me!
Not transcribing the listening. Transcribing the detection. Jjjjj
AMAZON SUCKS NO MATTER WHICH WAY YOU LOOK AT IT !!!!!!!!! KEEP YOUR C CARD IN YOUR POCKET !
Yeah I don't have this in my house.
No thanks 🤪
The real pandemic is the AI invasion
There's a device that fixes this! I can't remember what it's called, but it's made to look like a parasitic mushroom. It sits on your Echo Dot and covers its microphones. It has its own microphones and never listens to you unless you say the wake-up word, then it uses a small speaker to relay your query to the actual Dot. It's open source.
I am 100% against these listening devices
This is what China did. Now they have complete control
Damn this is messed up
Sent from my iPhone
when that came out i told my family we will never have one in our home ever.
Alesa, jump into the toilet and flush. No way I'm letting that spy into my house.
Alexa listening is disturbing your privacy… By listening to "everything". SUS as hell
Alexa is a 24 hrs call-centre to buy from Amazon.
@2:06 Amazon Exposed!
Got a smart phone? Got a smart tablet? A smart TV? A laptop? Do you use a credit/debit card?
Any yes to any above and you may as well have an Alexa or Google device in your home.
I had Alexa for a minute but got rid of it when I found out what Alexa really was and that it was being used in a court case against somebody .
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You asked a deceiving person working for a corporation that is known to keep every piece of data of it's purchasers it can, you now want that person to tell us the truth?
I would never have one of these in my home. My phone is freaking me out enough – i mention a subject to my husband. Within an hour there's an article about that subject in my Google newsfeed.
i never bought one and never will either
I already let Google know too much. I certainly don't need Alexa in there listening to me having sex.
It’s amazing how the SVP of devices speaks similarly to Jeff Bezos
HAL KILLED its friends and colleagues ! – 2001 : A Space Odyssey
Arthur C. Clarke warned us all.