Am I completely crazy or AIBU getting rid of Alexa?

[Konicek007]

Hello, call me paranoid but..would like some opinions.
We have Alexa Echo dot in the living room, purely because of the music, we not use it for anything else. We love it playing music through it. Hi
Yesterday me and my daughter ( 8 yrs) were having a conversation , her telling me about her horse toy she not longer wants, saying something in lines she doesn’t want to play with it anymore as she is too big now, to get rid of it etc..
Suddenly Alexa buttered in saying something like You are being warn and reported etc. We haven’t heard the message clear as we also had a music playing from radio.
None of us used the woke up word Alexa for her to respond, plus the music was playing in background but we did heard her saying about warning us..
Now I heard stories about these speakers are actually spying on your home but I never believed it.
My friend husband works for well know computer company as IT developer and he always kept saying to avoid these things in our home.
Now I’m actually paranoid and thinking to get rid of Alexa.
Your opinions please. ( don’t laugh)

This thread is comical considering you are all posting on the internet on a public forum with all the added login via facebook links etc.

My MN account isn't linked to any other online account, though. And everything I write on here is anonymous, and, more importantly, it's information I'm choosing to share.

Who cares if they are listening? I’m not saying anything worth listening to. Why do normal people who have nothing to hide care if Alexa is listening?

I’m not saying anything worth listening to.

And yet corporations will pay £££££ to access what you’re saying.

My MN account isn't linked to any other online account, though. And everything I write on here is anonymous, and, more importantly, it's information I'm choosing to share.

So what, you are still part of the dragnet situation, you can still be linked with your apple checkins, whatsapp, insta, facebook, google searches, you still seem to think there is some shadowy figure wanting to listen to 10 hours of your mundane day to day talk to highlight some specific targeted ad to you, you are not that important, the tech isn't there, there isn't call centers listening through your conversations, the footprint you have is not via some smart speaker at home, its a combination of circumstance where you are actually talking about a product becuase you have seen it online and you then notice it after you have had a conversation about it and you leaving large footprints online.

This thread is a perfect example of a little knowledge is dangerous thing

I got my first of these when they first came out. Have four of them about the house. Nothing like this has ever happened. Seems unlikely.

@adaline, you obviously don’t understand how it all works, aren’t capable of reading an article correctly and have just made a bunch of stuff up. If you don’t want one, fine don’t get one, but spreading a load of cobblers because you don’t understand tech is out of order.

Has anyone you seen the recent film Yves (English title All About Yves) about the intelligent fridge? Now that's really scary!

@Katy1213 that sounds brilliant

Just I don’t have any of those things except google.

It is, once again, about what you want to share.

Bit shocked that the 'nothing to hide nothing to fear argument' still lives on 😳
I guess the counterarguments haven't filtered through to everyone yet?

Look on the app to see what triggered the response. You'll be able to replay what you said and what you heard.

DH and I often talk about bomb-making and such like, just to see if we get a response (or a visit from the police!) but I've never had a warning or anything like that.

Maybe you've got parental controls on and it thought you had sworn or something similar?

I love the way everyone is saying you can see/hear what they have recorded etc.

You can see what they let you see, as with any of these things.

DH works in the tech industry and won’t have anything like Alexa in the house.

Bonkers to have one of these listening devices in your home, rather than just go and press play on Spotify.

I cant see the point of these things either but then i have no interest in tech or gadgets...seems like a way of getting people to part with even more of their hard earned cash.

is there anyone who works in the tech industry (or who could be considered an 'insider') who actively embraces all these devices?

is there anyone who works in the tech industry (or who could be considered an 'insider') who actively embraces all these devices

Mark Zuckerberg covers his laptop webcam - all you need to know really...

Bonkers to have one of these listening devices in your home, rather than just go and press play on Spotify.

On your iPhone? That has Siri? Which is exactly the same as Alexa?

You can turn Siri off in settings/choose not to set it up on a new device

And who Siri-usly does that? 10% of people maybe?

DH has a senior position in an AI firm and he's Alexa-ed us up to the eyeballs

Mark Zuckerberg will only tell people what he wants them to know

Reallybadidea,
does your husband not see anything malign about all the 'spying' devices?

busybarbara Siri is definitely off on my phone!

@busybarbara nice pun 😄 yes probably not many, but the option is there

I think there's fundamental misunderstanding on this thread. Yes, Amazon have real people listening to the recordings and they're quite open about it. But only the speech that happens after Alexa recognises the wake word, until it has fulfilled the request - ie only the things you actively choose to say to Alexa

The Alexa device has enough voice recognition ability to recognise the wake word. When it wakes, it records and sends the data to the Amazon servers to be deciphered. Some of these recordings also go to real humans to fine tune the speech recognition.

But can anyone point to any actual evidence (not anecdote and speculation) that it sends all of your speech to the Amazon servers? I can't find any anywhere. There has been lots and lots of analysis of how it works, and you can see, very clearly, the spikes in network traffic that start after the wake word, and end when Alexa has fulfilled the request (see image).

We're chucking data at services all the time, and it's amazing the insight they can gain about us that looks like they must be listening to our every word - but there just isn't any evidence that they are, despite some coincidences. I think many of these anecdotes of "We talked about X and suddenly started seeing ads for it" can be explained by the Baader-Meinhof effect (which accounts for the 'I was just thinking of my sister and then she phoned' coincidence - we don't remember all the times we think of our sister and she doesn't phone).