Alexa?

No use at all if you ask it opinion based questions such as “Should I buy a KTM?” It’s not AI smart, it’s basically just a voice activated search engine. You’d get exactly the same answers as you do from your smart phone. So go ahead & ask it to play Bob Dylan or One Direction if you’re that way inclined, it can tell you the weather forecast & read the headlines to you, it can switch your lights on & off if you link it up & operate your smartphone but other than that, if you’re able bodied, it’s a bag of shite & it’s probably recording your every movement & reporting back to its overlords. Proceed with care!

 

I've had one for ages in Echo form. I love mine - the sound quality from such a small unit is very acceptable.

I find it convenient to create playlists on Amazon music and without getting off my backside, get Alexa to play either those - or something else. Or even a radio station without me moving. It can be turned up or down by voice command and on or off.

It will answer most of what Google will answer, if I am watching a film and want to know how old someone is, or if they are dead - I ask and the answer comes back
I can access the logs and see what 'she' has picked up and leave or clear them as I choose

...As to it listening all the time, I highly doubt some poor sap at Amazon has a job looking at inane conversations from millions of customer exchanges. I rank the possibility of that along with alien abductions and covid vaccine microchips being real.
Yes it can tell you if you have an Amazon delivery due - whether it tells you what the parcel contains, depends how you define it in setup.

Its no more spy than a mobile phone or messenger service

 

Hmmm...I used to work in a related industry, trust me Alexa hears everything you say. It has to, to function properly. What it does with it is the question. I’m sure you are right in that it would be physically impossible to monitor everybody’s Alexa conversations 24/7 throughout the world but...it does report back regularly. Amazon say that it’s to improve the service & to better tailor its responses to your needs. Up to you whether that’s a concern. My damn phone does the same as do Samsung TV’s etc

 

Try saying
“Alexa say Jeremy Corbin, Carrots, 100 in Welsh”

 

Also try “Alexa start the HAL 9000”

 

Yup good old HAL started off as a Bessie mate didn’t he, then went all psychotic & mass murdery

 

They do. I read an article a while back by an Amazon employee whose job it was to do exactly that, ie: listen to snippets of customer's inputs, including ambient conversations recorded when the customer was eg: speaking to family members rather than addressing the silicon spy on the shelf. This was done in order to tweak the learning algorithm and to help it better understand regional accents and slang.

I'll see if I can find it.

 

Yep. Very creepy. I remember once telling someone (verbally) about the Polio Society collection box which was in the shape of a boy that used to stand outside my local chemist when I was a kid. I'd pointed out that someone we both knew looked like they should have a a slot in the top of their head, but the person I was speaking to didn't get the reference. I didn't and as far as I am aware, had never typed anything to do with polio into any of my devices, but within hours I was getting pop up ads for leg callipers, built up shoes and other related orthopaedic devices.



EDIT: I've just realised that the one in the photo is a small handheld one not the 3ft high, free-standing one I seem to recall from my childhood.

 

I think we’ve probably all got stories like that recently. Maybe not the Polio bit!
The learning algorithms of all of these sort of devices are fascinating. There is no doubt that if you are discussing radical politics, perhaps using words like communism and fascism, even BLM, Trump and other current political buzzwords or related words on a “danger list” somebody, somewhere in dark suits & sunglasses will be listening to what you’re saying. It’s a mad world already!

 

Yep. About 3 yrs ago I went down a bit of a You Tube rabbit hole/link spiral and watched a load of videos about ISIS and AQ, which culminated in a Al Jazerra documentary about defective batteries on a new Boeing aeroplane that could result in an explosion. A couple of nights later, all my devices started flashing up security warnings to the effect that the router had been compromised and I still wonder whether I'd inadvertently triggered the super computer through which all our internet usage is channeled and they'd tasked an analyst to have a look just to check I wasn't up to no good.

 

I think some of you guys need tinfoil hats