The company added that employees do not have access to personally identifying information, and that the devices only capture data after theyвЂ™ve been activated by a вЂњwake wordвЂќ - usually вЂњAlexa.вЂќ Bloomberg, however, reported that some employees said they had reviewed audio captured after devices were awoken by accident. вЂњThis information helps us train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems, so Alexa can better understand your requests, and ensure the service works well for everyone,вЂќ the statement said. In order to learn from that data, the algorithms that run the devices need human teachers to help them understand what they are hearing, and to learn from their mistakes.ДЄmazon said in a statement that it only annotates an extremely small number of interactions from a random subset of its customers in order to advance its technology. Not only can Alexa order your groceries, set your thermostat, and answer your kidsвЂ™ homework questions, it can understand nuanced human speech, something that is extremely difficult for computers to do. The capabilities of Alexa and other smart speakers are astounding compared with the voice technology of just a few years ago, and that rapid development is largely thanks to the huge amount of data generated by their tens of millions of users.

He said the questions are only going to become more pronounced as homes get smarter.

вЂњWeвЂ™ve traditionally thought of places like the home as being sacred.вЂќ weвЂ™ve got some real challenges ahead,вЂќ said David OвЂ™Brien, assistant research director for privacy and security at HarvardвЂ™s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. вЂњIt is revelatory in just how much access and insight a company like Amazon has into your physical home, and if we keep going in this direction. It also opened up another front in a debate that is roiling big technology: How much privacy are users willing to give up in the name of convenience? The Bloomberg disclosure was another public policy headache for Amazon amid a growing outcry from Senator Elizabeth Warren and others to break up technology behemoths.

Berkman klein center alexa hasse