Thanks to Siri Recaps, your Apple Watch is always listening

troupo

Quote: "Watching this Apple event tout how iPhones will soon be able to record ambient audio/conversations and transcribe "high level notes" for you. It's billed as private and end-to-end encrypted, but I think the bigger harm is the normalization of always-listening devices. It's creepy and not normal." https://mastodon.social/@zackwhittaker/117242363654801025

sdcfgy

That’s going to be a hell of a security risk for us. I think it’ll be a no watches policy in the office going forward.

basisword

Personally I think it's a silly risk for Apple to do this - but don't Granola and a bunch of other high profile apps already do this? Add to that the number of meetings I'm on now filled with 'John's AI companion' recording the entire thing largely because people enable this nonsense and don't know or care how to stop it. The ship has sailed sadly. The more of this always on recording we have the more society is going to change. We already hear about young people scared to have fun because they might be recorded. Next it'll be people scared to share opinions (or anything gossipy) because it could be recorded and plausible deniability no longer exists.

khalic

I don’t think it bothers me, as long as the audio isn’t stored… but I can definitely see why it would bother some people. The device microphones are already always listening, this just makes use of that sound a lot more than just listening for “hey siri”.

napolux

Never bought a smartwatch, even when I was in love with the Pebble. I hate having to charge it every day. I don't need notifications on my wrist. I have a Casio that has a 10 years battery and dual timezone I need when I travel and a TAG Heuer when I need a "better looking" watch. I don't need to track steps or trainings. Even when I did it was with stupid gadgets like early fitbit bands without displays. When I will need something that will alert people when I fall (in many years from now, hopefully) I will use a specialized device. * You don't need a smartwatch. *

bondarchuk

Crazy that this is about to be normalized. Can't help but think the discourse of "they already record everything anyway" of the past couple years (even in the absence of complete proof) has played a part.

moepstar

That’s actually a good thing to me, wasn’t going to get another Apple Watch anyways - now that’s an even firmer decision now. My reasoning so far was that I absolutely didn’t get the use out of it I envisioned and, to my even bigger surprise, the integration between Watch and iPhone wasn’t even that good…

Espressosaurus

How does this work in two party consent states? It seems nuts on the face of it. I guess they devolve liability onto the user and wash their hands of it?

gumby

I like the idea (we’ll see about the execs). It seems to record what I would remember anyway (“yesterday you and Joe and Anupam talked about going fishing a chose a date”) unless I was distracted. It’s like the cameras in the glasses. If all they said is what _I_ know (“That’s Julie who worked in the same group as you at company Z three years ago. You also ran into her at the grocery store shortly after you quit Z and it was awkward” but not tell me anything about Julie I wouldn’t know, like spouse or where she now works or anything like that”) it would be an excellent prosthesis. Public figures have humans who do this for them. Unfortunately the glasses makers don’t understand the difference and make it too general and privacy destroying. This Apple thing might be OK in my opinion..but the reality remains to be seen.

hncbw02z5a

built a meeting bot once, forgot the consent chime, legal killed it same week

stranded22

I’m audhd - I LOVE this. It will be so helpful (I hope)

jsw97

This is, I believe, a felony in Massachusetts. https://www.romanolaw.com/can-i-record-a-conversation-in-mas... (Linking to discussion, not the statute, because it confirms that it is in fact enforced.) Come to think of it, this would also include smart glasses, etc. And whatever those LG devices were doing. Paging the AG...

haute_cuisine

With "use it or loose it" brain feature, I don't really want my natural recap skill to atrophy to make me dependent on this sort of tech. Not considering that they can secretly ship other monitoring features to constantly scan for certain discussions.

soapdog

Hence why I wear an old pebble to this day. Smart where it matters but not a data siphoning device.

trolleski

You are the product.

Molitor5901

There has always been the myth/rumor/belief that our devices are always listening. I wonder if this is an overton window moment, get people used to a device actually listening and slowly move to all devices listening.

algoth1

Nice, no need for an LG TV anymore

chrisjj

> Speakers are not identified Apple thinks that's a benefit, apparently.

speedgoose

Sincerely, what the fuck Apple? > Your data is not accessible to Apple either, thanks to Private Cloud Compute, and "independent security experts can verify this promise at any time". Siri Recaps auto-delete after seven days too. Apple is serious about getting users to trust this feature. Alright. Let say I’m an independent security expert, how could I verify? I can’t, right?

stblack

Siri cannot tell whether I'm speaking English or French. It's not even close. I have manually corrected "sale" to "sail" a thousand times post dictation, and Siri doesn't notice, it's "sale" always. This transcription feature is gonna be a sad joke. This is Apple doubling-down on shit that doesn't work, and has never really worked.