KAY’SCORNER
10 OCTOBER 2019|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE 380
They’reallears
ANUMBEROFnews items
about smart speakers such
as Amazon Alexa and Google
Home,orassistants such as
Apple Siri or MicrosoftCortana,
have got me thinking this month
about just how privateour
homes are if we have voice-
activated technology.
It all started with an email
that caught my eye. The
subject line said, ‘Alexa,
monitor my heart’.
The body of the email then
went on to explain that
researchers have developed a
contactless cardiac arrest AI
system forsmart speakers.
Almost 500,000 Americans die
each year from cardiac arrest,
and if theycan get CPR quickly,
theystand amuch better
chance of surviving. However,
that requires someone to be
there to carry out the CPR.
LAST GASP
The AI system monitors for
something called agonal
breathing, which is asymptom
of many people who are
experiencing cardiac arrest.
Agonal breathing is described
as sounding like guttural
gasping, but it can also sound
like snorting or moaning.
The app,developed forsmart
speakers such as Alexa, Google
Home or even asmartphone,
listens forthe gasping sound
of agonal breathing and calls
forhelp.The researchers say
their tool, which was developed
using real agonal breathing
instances captured from calls
to the emergency services,
detected agonal breathing
events 97% of the time from up
to 20 feet away.
At the moment, this is just a
proofofconcept tool, but the
researchers are in the process of
gathering more data and hope to
release acommercial version of
the technology.Itall sounds
great, but I’m not sure Iwant a
smart speaker device listening
out formehaving acardiac
arrest. Forone thing, my exercise
bike is in the bedroom, and given
the wayIgasp and wheeze while
pedalling along, it would
probably be phoning forthe
ambulance most mornings.
LISTENING POST
The item further highlighted the
fact that having the convenience
of asmart speaker or assistant
on your phone means you’ve
essentially got acomputer
listening to everything you say,
and that was also illustrated by
two other recent pieces of news
about Amazon Alexa.
The first announcement is
that you can now deleteAlexa
recordings by issuing voice
commands. It’s obvious if you
think about it: in order to
respond to ‘Alexa’, ‘HeyCortana’
or ‘OK Google’, the relevant
device has to be always listening.
Most of the time,what you’re
saying won’t be recorded, but
once you issue acommand or
ask aquestion, the data is
passed to whichever provider
–Microsoft, Apple,Google or
Amazon –makes your device.
This should only be the question
you asked or command you
issued, but there’s uncertainty
about just how much extra data
–either before or after –isstored
as well. What happens to the
voice recording after that isn’t
necessarily clear,either.Amazon
keeps all the conversations, for
example,and also shares them
with third-party companies,
while Apple apparently keeps
only acertain amount.
This isn’t necessarily just a
computer using artificial
intelligence to help understand
your accent. According to a
report by Bloomberg, Amazon
uses humans to listen to
recordings to use them to
improve the software.One
worker in Boston said he’d heard
things the users might not have
wanted to share,and that the
teams use internal chatrooms to
share files when theyneed help
parsing amuddled word or come
across an amusing recording.
PARANOIDANDROID
If reading this has made you
suitablyparanoid, you can find
full details of how to delete
your Alexa, Google and Siri
conversations in ‘Reclaim Your
Online Privacy’ (page 94). For
Cortana, it’s asimilar case of
turning it on and off as with Siri.
In Windows 10, look under
Settings, Privacy,Speech, inking
&typing, and click the Stop
getting to know me button.
If I’ve already unnerved you
about how much your smart
speaker is listening to you, the
final news from Amazon was
that of apatent forpre-wake
word speech processing. In other
words, whereas now you say,
‘Alexa, what’s the weather?’,
under the new patent Alexa
would be able to deal with
questions such as, ‘What’s the
weather,Alexa?’.This would
widen the range of queries that
wake the device,and presumably
the amount of data being stored.
So I’m not going to be putting
any sort of voice-activated
speakers anywhere Iwant to be
certain I’m private, and where I
do have voice-activated
speakers, I’ll think about using
the ‘mutethe microphone’
option abit more often. The
Walls Have Ears, you know.
KAYEWBANK
Software guru andShopperlegend
[email protected]
Smartspeakersand voiceassistantscannow listen outfor peoplehavingaheart
attack.KayEwbankwondersiftheirlistening skillshave gone toofar
Idon’t want asmart speaker listening out formehaving acardiac arrest. My
exercise bikeisinthe bedroom, and given the wayIgasp and wheezewhile
pedalling, it would probably phone forthe ambulancemostmornings
