It caused quite a stir in 2019 when it was revealed that Amazon employees were scrutinizing conversations with the digital assistant. Something similar is happening now, but for a different reason: The goal is to make Alexa’s built-in AI as meaningful as possible. But what can the user do if he does not agree to this?

Poetic question: Why is Amazon excluded from the world of artificial intelligence? So it was no surprise when earlier this year Amazon introduced AlexaLLM, a large language model that it embeds into the voice assistant to make Alexa’s responses smarter and more dynamic. Recently, Amazon also announced new AI capabilities for its Alexa products. However, the new Alexa LLM is the largest integration of the large language model, which provides real-time services on many devices, according to Amazon.

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However, AI doesn’t just pick up its knowledge from scratch, it has to be taught, and according to recent reports, the tech giant will also use an unknown amount of user conversations to train Alexa’s new AI capabilities. This is that nbc According to his report – Amazon admitted this too.

An Amazon spokesperson responded to all this by saying: GizmodotoHe added that using customers’ voice recordings to train the company’s algorithms is not new, and that only a “very small percentage” of users’ voice recordings are used in this way, but he could not give specific numbers on how much. the GizmodoIn a subsequent statement to , the company also claimed that customers would still have “access to the same powerful tools and privacy controls they use today to control their Alexa experience.” He also added that customers will always know that Alexa is listening to their request because the blue indicator light will be on and an optional beep will be heard. In addition, you can opt out of voice recording in your data protection settings.

However, it’s not certain that all of this will reassure users and data protection advocates, especially in light of the fact that in 2019 it was revealed that thousands of Amazon employees listened in and transcribed conversations with Assistant around the world. The news — and the ensuing backlash — prompted Amazon to develop a feature that allows users to block human screeners from accessing their voice commands. The same feature also helps users who don’t want their commands used to train Amazon’s AI algorithms.

Regardless, John Davison, litigation director and senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said consumers should question Amazon’s interest in retaining and using voice data. “I don’t think we should accept that Amazon needs to retain this data to develop products, and consumers often don’t understand what that means. Joining such programs would require positive confirmation of the opt-in rather than setting it by default,” he said.

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