• April 12, 2019

BEWARE: Amazon workers are listening to your private conversations through Alexa

LONDON April 12: Amazon workers are listening to private and sometimes disturbing voice recordings from Alexa to improve the voice-assistants’ understanding of human speech.

The company has admitted to its customers that thousands of recordings are being analysed by staff and transcribed before feeding them back into the software.

As many as 1,000 clips are reviewed by workers in buildings all over the world, many of which do not bear any obvious indication that they are run by Amazon.

Among more sinister content the workers have heard, have been a child screaming for help and two instances were they believed they heard a sexual assault taking place.

The revelations once again raise thorny ethical questions over the future of AI smart assistants in the home, how tech companies like Amazon are gathering personal information and just what they are – and should – be doing with it.