Omg we just got Alexa

[reddressinggown]

Tell me what fun things she does

This is freaky!

I commented not long ago on another Alexa
thread and was told that I was mad for having one as they are basically spies who listen to us all the time.
Mine won't even listen to me when she's switched on

Scaremongering at its finest.

It’s not scaremongering or tin foil hat stuff though is it? It’s asking the question is the trade off between perceived convenience and your privacy worth it?
@strawberrisc Amazon have already filed a patent so that , for example, when the device hears you coughing it will recommended cough medicine. So it will be listening to every cough fart or whatever and then try and sell you an appropriate product!
And do people actually read the terms and conditions the sign up for? Eg, google says Google shares your data with commercial businesses, that it saves your activity “on Google sites, apps and services”, including every website you access via Chrome and monitors the battery level on your smartphone and how often you use it.
All I’m saying is it’s right to be cynical. As these tech companies have shown in the past, they monitor us and use the data they collect in their best interests- not ours!

We have Google in bedrooms, living room and kitchen! We mainly use it for turning lights on/off, music, alarms, recipes, weather etc. What it has really helped with is DS2 speech as he has to slow down and think about speaking clearly (he has speech and language SN)

Just played the animal game with mine. I won and at the end she said "was it X?", I said no, she asked what it was. I told her. She then rather creepily said "Thank you." Added to her memory banks Mr Burns "exxxxccelllent" style.

We have just ordered an echo dot and I'm a bit worried that with Christmas approaching the children will ask Alexa if Father Christmas is real!! What will Alexa say to that?!

She is very child-friendly. Will warn if anything has adult content (as I just found when I asked to play akinator!). Not near her atm of I'd ask her for you.

Exactly whitecottonsheets, it's perceived convenience. DH and I hate this shit and our DC certainly won't be having it.

Use it for turning off the lights? Unless you are physically unable to that is staggeringly lazy.

I can also check the weather, write a shopping list, use recipes and check music without technology "helping" me.

For a recent murder case, the Alexa was taken for evidence as it was recording...recording all the time, not just when switched on.

Not quite. It’s a fishing expedition on the chance it might have been recording at the time. It’s not the first time the recordings have been requested for a murder case. As yet I don’t think it’s managed to actually record someone being killed on one of the fragments.presumably because saying the wake word to make it start recording is not a priority when you are being attacked.

I have the show and I love it. I also could’ve give a shit if it listens to me all the time. I don’t wear a tin hat

It’s not tin hat stuff, it’s technology. However, someone would have to have an interest in you to bother, which is unlikely! I do find some of it really lazy though, the next evolution from handwriting to typing to vocalising. But hey, not everyone is as miserable as me :D

what’s better dot or echo?

Note to self if being murdered don't forget to shout Alexa to ensure a conviction

I have Siri who has only ever been opened by accident. Alexa will not darken our doorstep- talking to an inanimate object seems a step too far (unless a child speaks to their doll or teddy bear).

Google, amazon and Facebook are massively interested though aren’t they! By their very nature these gadgets have to be listening all the time or they wouldn’t hear their ‘woke word’ to start recording. This data has enormous commercial value to them - or they wouldn’t bother! The sole aim of this data is to sell you more stuff. It’s like inviting a market reaercher into your lounge with a clip board who monitors your conversations to pick out the bits that can be used for targeted marketing. If you are happy for this level of intrusion, great! But let’s be realistic, these gadgets are monitoring and sending data to the tech companies with the ultimate aim of getting you to buy more stuff!

@oflow completely agree! We are already monitored so much outside our homes, why would you actively chose to be monitored further in your own home!

I understand the privacy concerns and think they're valid but we have an Alex's despite this. It's easy to just ask it to play whatever song or type of music we want to listen to on Spotify and to me this is it's best feature. We also use the timer, and send messages to each other (we have one in the lounge and the other in the kitchen). I use the one in the kitchen to listen to radio programmes while I'm cooking and it's great to for example switch whenever I want between Radio 4 and NPR by voice when my hands are covered in biscuit dough.

I think we're taking a gamble that the powers that be will never be interested in what DH and I have to say to each other as we're very boring - however if I were active in any political fringe groups, more critical of the government than many people, or from a group of people that might be targeted in any way (windrush, etc) I wouldn't have one. Also we don't have children so we're only taking that choice for ourselves. As far as advertising is concerned it doesn't do that at the minute and we confuse it to buy stuff - if it started advertising we'd just get rid.

Confuse = don't use

What’s the difference brteeen the dot and the echo etc?

i wont have one in the house becase of the privacy stuff. my friend is an expert in cyber tech and the articles he writes on how our devices are listening to us and gathering our data are terrifying. Foe example, you email a friend saying the washing machine is broken and suddenly you are being spmmed with adverts for washing machines.

I was really saddened at the poster whose young DS gets Alexa to make the dinosaur noises because they are better than the one she makes. Robo-mum means mum isnt playing with her son and he has learned the machine does it better. Anyone read "The Machine Stops"?

whatsnew ditto all of that. I have a child but she only ever uses it when her friends come over and they ask it for poo songs
It went through a stage when we first got it of thinking Stampy was talking to it when the TV was up loud enough for it to hear - doesn't do that any more and tbh if the music is high it often takes a very loud shout to get it to hear 'Alexa' anyway. You could easily have it playing in a room for a party and it wouldn't hear anything said for the evening over it's own music. I don't interact with it much but I do use it to listen to different radio channels when I'm in the kitchen (washing up) and sometimes attempt to ask it questions but have found it is more frustrating than useful in that dept.

@Whatsnewwithyou you make good point- you are assuming that the powers that be aren’t interested in your conversations and maybe they aren’t.
But the devices have the capability of recording all of your conversations and sending that data to the tech companies. People are trusting them not too.
But can they really be trusted? Especially when they know that this data has a high commercial value. We are assuming they will be ethical but in the past they (Facebook, google etc) have proven not to be.

The Pointless quiz skill is pretty good. Has Xander and Richard with Alexa as co-host. A different set of 3 questions every day.

I use for definitions and spelling

We have one but don't use it much. Mainly because we don't know all the things it does! Dd1 asked it who Tutenkamen (sic)mother is andit told her she was well impressed

“Alexa, why won’t anyone come to my wedding; it’s in Maui”