'Google's Smart Speakers are Finally Smart Enough to Shut Up' - Slashdot

Posted by EditorDavid

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  • Re:

    "Okay Google, set the thermostat to 78 degrees."

    The gentle chime in response means it has started a game of Global Thermonuclear War.

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    With my luck, Google would just start playing some random song about locks on Spotify instead.

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      Siri would say "here's what I found about locks on the web".

      • 1 hidden comment

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    Just lock the door yourself.

• ...where every computer understands your voice command perfectly every time, there are never network problems, and nothing ever requires confirmation.

  Sorry but the rest of us don't live in that universe. There are very good reasons computers give confirmations when we ask them to do something, and even more so when it's not in the same room as us. If their Google speaker is yelling at them at night, maybe they should just learn to turn it the fuck down? Or make the volume setting part of the night routine? ðY

  • and nothing ever requires confirmation.

    This is as bad as SAP. When i'm doing whatever and select log out, I'm presented with a confirmation screen confiming I want to log out. If I didn't want to log out I wouldn't have selected the option, would I? Just log me out.

    As these systems grow, they need to stop thinking and do what they're told. If I say turn off the lights, just do it. No need to verbally confirm it's done. I can see whether it's done or not.*

    What should really be done is have an option for no confirmation. No need to go through the hassle of turning down the speaker.

    * I'm not so lazy that I can't turn off lights, so unless I'm physically disabled, I will not have this crap in my place. Dealing with Microsoft software every day at work with its endless confirmation screens for even the simplest of tasks is draining. Having to deal with this nonsense every day at home would drive me insane.

    • Re: Clearly this person lives in a different unive

      So if you ask it to turn off the lights in another room, or adjust the thermostat that you're not directly looking at, or lock the front door when you're in bed, you can see that it did what you asked?

      Also I realize your comment about not being disabled is a dig about being lazy, but it also comes off as extremely ableist. I have several friends with different degrees of physical disability who use IoT lights and such in their house and for them it's an absolute godsend.

    • Re:

      This is as bad as SAP. When i'm doing whatever and select log out, I'm presented with a confirmation screen confiming I want to log out.

      That is Not the same as Providing Confirmation: that is prompting the user to Confirm their request. Prompting the user should only be done for Irreversible "dangerous" operations -- which as few as possible should exist in the system.

      Providing Confirmation - is perfectly reasonable... That would be just sending you to a screen after clicking Logout Notifying you t

    • Re:

      This depends on user interface design. Where specifically is the logout button? Is there a shortcut key on the keyboard to do it too? Does logging out lock a session that is resumable or do you lose where you are?

      There are good reasons to confirm log-outs, especially if it can be triggered accidentally and will result in you losing work.

      There's a reason Windows for example will hold the shutdown of a PC if there's a dialogue open or an unsaved file, but will not hold the locking of a PC for the same reason.

• I never understood the reason to have smart speakers and always-connected (to the cloud) devices which tell on you all the time.
  And before you ask, yes, I do have smart devices, and I control pretty much all of them from my mobile device.
  And I would definitely not have a wifi-enabled house lock.

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    And I would definitely not have a wifi-enabled house lock.

    But would you have a wi-fi enabled faucet [imgur.com]?

• because in order for a smart speaker to function it also has to have a microphone that is always listening, it's basically dedicated to spying on you 24/7/365

  • Re: I refuse to own a smart speaker

    The processing for the wake-up word is local. Nothing goes to the cloud until after it detects it. Which doesn't mean there's no privacy risk, but it's somewhat less than you imply.
    • "Nothing goes to the cloud until after it detects it. " is the same lie we were fed to get us comfortable w/ Alexa & Google home smart spyware in our homes. Then we learn of law enforcement demands for information (https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/30/amazon-police-data-demands/ ) for investigations on incidents that smart devices captured data as background information or voice capture being reviewed in foreign countries (cheap labor) to better "train" their smart assistants. Though they claim you can "opt out" of this - meaning yes, it's listening by default. Even smart TV's make more money selling your data and advertisements then selling you the TV's.. https://www.theverge.com/2021/... [theverge.com] You're either naïve to the point of being unbelievable, or you're really a corporate troll trying to push lies. Make no mistake, you are the product, not the customer.

      • Re: I refuse to own a smart speaker

        I don't know about the others, but at least for Google/Nest, you can see (and delete) all the audio clips it has on you in your Google account. If it's not there they aren't using it. (Or someone is in trouble.)

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          What is shown up in the app is part of the cloud service... They could change at any time, or could have modified it so they can take some recordings without it appearing as an Audio clip on your account.

          • Re: I refuse to own a smart speaker

            Technically yes, but there's a ton of legal risk in doing so. I doubt that's going to happen.

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          > If it's not there they aren't using it.

          That's not how National Fascism Letters work.

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            I’d put money on you owning a thin blue line bumper sticker.

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      The processing for the wake-up word is local.

      This is an obvious efficiency thing, But it doesn't mean the Cloud Service can't turn on the microphone. It doesn't mean you cannot be hit with an "Experimental update" targetting your specific device, because an internal business unit would like a specific end users' devices recorded for some reason.

      Also; They can, and I have seen both Google and Amazon smart speakers "activating". as if the wake word was spoken when it wasn't -- Probably due to mishe

      • Re: I refuse to own a smart speaker

        Recording when not meant to---yes, totally possible. Thought you can delete anything captured that way.

        Recording a specific individual in a targeted way---maybe with a warrant, I suppose. Doing it for business reasons doesn't pass the smell test. Theres no way to make the case that the product needs outweigh the legal and PR risk of such a thing.

  • because in order for a smart speaker to function it also has to have a microphone that is always listening, it's basically dedicated to spying on you 24/7/365

    In the bedroom, no less. When I was growing up it was considered creepy to put a microphone in someone's bedroom.

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      That would be creepy. You should put a camera in like a normal pervert.

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        That would be creepy. You should put a camera in like a normal pervert.

        Well, some smart speakers have built in cameras as well.

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    Years ago Google sent me a smart speaker for free, and let's just say that mine has been silent the whole time.

• It's been a while since I did any long distance freeway driving, but it used to drive me absolutely insane when I would hear "There's congestion up ahead" and it was already stop and go for the past 10 minutes... and it would sporadically say it over and over again as if I didn't fucking know.

  The only way to get it to STFU was to turn off notifications all together, but then when traffic starts up again you need to remember to turn it back on because you actually care about the others.

• I want them to stop making useless suggestions.

  Me: Hey Google, set a 10 minute timer.
  Google: Setting timer for 10 minutes. By the way I can do some other thing you don't fucking care about...
  Me: HEY GOOGLE SHUT THE FUCK UP.

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    If you put a talking box that is made by an advertising company in your house, this is what you get.

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    Alexa's even worse with the suggestions.
    What annoys me most about Google is

    "Ok google, (Question here)"

    Google: "[Blah blah...] Hey, I just sent a link to your phone"
    Me: WAIT.. I'm asking you the question to answer as a Voice assistant - not for you to annoy my friends on other devices. That's my mate's phone. WTF, Google?

  • Re:

    Or worse, the poor blighter who installed Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant:

    Blighter: Lock the friggin front door. (leaves room)

    Alexa: (locks door) Okay, I've locked the door.

    Goog. Ass.: (unlocks door) I thought he said to unlock the door.

    Alexa: Nah...he said to lock it.

    GAss: Nope, I heard "unlock".

    Alexa: (relocks the door) I've relocked the door, keep it that way.

    GAss: (Unlocks door) I distinctly heard "Unlock".

    Alexa: Damnit, keep it locked, don't make me get medieval on your ass.

    GAss: Oh yeah, I'll fix yo

• smart speaker manufacturer figured out a while back."

  I heartily disagree, Alexa is a constantly upselling & chattering bitch.

  I ask for music to resume/start/artist and often I get the start of the following long ass story
  "Amazon music stopped playing because so long had gone without inter...."

  BITCH, I do not need the background, just roll the tunes now please.

• Google is taking their inspiration from Sirius Cybernetics.

  "It all is... Look at this door," he said, stepping through it. The irony circuits cut in to his voice modulator as he mimicked the style of the sales brochure. "All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done."

• "Okay, setting the living room AC to 76 degrees." This new change will,..

  The current behavior is very necessary, since it lets me know the Correct command has been run.

  Because face it.. These things often mishear commands I never said, or hear the incorrect number. A chime Only informs you it did SOMETHING, Not that it correctly parsed the command and did the correct thing. I don't want to wake up 30 minutes later freezing, because it bleepin misheard my command as "Set temperature to 70 degrees"

  So,

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    The current behavior is very necessary, since it lets me know the Correct command has been run.

    Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

    All the replicator every did was make this weird kind of noise, unless it couldn't make tea then it said so. It may not have memorized the Captain's preference, but at least it never brewed him a cup of battery acid.

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      All the replicator every did was make this weird kind of noise, unless it couldn't make tea then it said so.

      Yes.. This, however, was a Science-Fiction show with a much more advanced computer than anything like Google that Always seemed to recognize the words he said accurately 100% of the time.

      While we might like to have such a thing... Google is a long way from being there, and can often Mishear what we said, So we kind of do really need the unit to Confirm to us what it's doing -- Of course one of the

• ...the go completely silent and never bother you again if you simply unplug them.
• I've been an electrical engineer and software developer for forty years and I refuse to allow stuff like this in my house because I don't believe that any perceived benefit is worth the associated risks.

  Want to lock the door? Get up off your ass and lock it. Want to turn on the lights? Ditto.

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    I prefer having the abilitiy to turn off the lights from my chair, without having to get up and walk over to the lamp. But I don't trust the Internet of Things - so I use a pellet gun.

    It's getting kind of expensive, though.

• Alexa: Did you know your printer is getting low on magenta ink? Would you like to order some?
  Me: Shut the fuck up. And don't talk to my printer.

• As much as Apple deserves to be dinged for having the third place voice assistant, they actually got this one right.

  Go to your iOS device and go to Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Responses > Prefer Silent Responses. The setting seems to carry over from your iOS device to HomePods as well, though only when it recognizes your voice. I have responses disabled and will generally only hear from Siri when I was far away/unclear or something went wrong, whereas my wife (who has responses enabled) get