Amazon Workers May Be Watching Your Cloud Cam Home Footage (bloomberg.com) 43
An anonymous reader shares a report: In a promotional video, Amazon says its Cloud Cam home security camera provides "everything you need to monitor your home, day or night." In fact, the artificially intelligent device requires help from a squad of invisible employees. Dozens of Amazon workers based in India and Romania review select clips captured by Cloud Cam, according to five people who have worked on the program or have direct knowledge of it. Those video snippets are then used to train the AI algorithms to do a better job distinguishing between a real threat (a home invader) and a false alarm (the cat jumping on the sofa). An Amazon team also transcribes and annotates commands recorded in customers' homes by the company's Alexa digital assistant, Bloomberg reported in April.
AI has made it possible to talk to your phone. It's helping investors predict shifts in market sentiment. But the technology is far from infallible. Cloud Cam sends out alerts when it's just paper rustling in a breeze. Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa still occasionally mishear commands. One day, engineers may overcome these shortfalls, but for now AI needs human assistance. Lots of it. At one point, on a typical day, some Amazon auditors were each annotating about 150 video recordings, which were typically 20 to 30 seconds long, according to the people, who requested anonymity to talk about an internal program.
AI has made it possible to talk to your phone. It's helping investors predict shifts in market sentiment. But the technology is far from infallible. Cloud Cam sends out alerts when it's just paper rustling in a breeze. Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa still occasionally mishear commands. One day, engineers may overcome these shortfalls, but for now AI needs human assistance. Lots of it. At one point, on a typical day, some Amazon auditors were each annotating about 150 video recordings, which were typically 20 to 30 seconds long, according to the people, who requested anonymity to talk about an internal program.
Good luck to those 'zon workers! (Score:3)
I don't have anything of that kind in my home, and I never will. It's a good warning though - I can foresee the day when I'll have to ask friends and clients if they have such cameras, and make alternative meeting arrangements if they do.
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Problem with making other meeting arrangements. I don't know of too many places anymore that are not under some type of surveillance with cameras. And it's just getting worse as time goes on.
There really should be an app for determining where video surveillance is located, and by whom is surveilling.
You could crowdsource locations...
It may however help "criminals" which are defined by the laws of the country you are in...
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My guess is he'd suggest there.
It's not just cameras on the wall... (Score:3)
Even in places that don't have CCTV-style cameras, how many of your friends are carrying phones or other "smart" devices that have microphones, cameras, GPS, and some sort of AI-powered automated assistant feature?
That is the really insidious thing about the likes of Google and Apple devices today. It's not just that you might not want them in your own home. It's that every time you have a conversation in a restaurant, a dozen of them are listening to your every word from nearby tables and potentially phoni
Re:Good luck to those 'zon workers! (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you don't have it in your HOME, but you have it in your POCKET...
Any meeting that you want to hold secretly and be sure that nobody is listening, make sure there are no cell phones within a 100 feet radius.
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You presume he has a cellphone why?
Seems obvious to me... Posting on slashdot implies having an internet connection, sympathy for Amazon warehouse meat-robots and .sig about economic exploitation implies not being independently wealthy, having an internet connection but not wealth implies having a job (or living with someone who does), having a job implies having a (cell) phone.
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Turn off phones and insert into foil/mylar wrap/bag. Then put into a hard case. Done and done. Still a PITA most people aren't going to go through.
4yo "I think Google is listening to me" (Score:5, Interesting)
My four year old received a Google Home device as a gift, the thing that takes verbal commands such as "turn on the light" or "play twinkle twinkle" (no camera).
Although such a thing would be useful for a little kid who is scared of monsters and wants to be able to turn on the light without braving getting out of bed, I had misgivings. I had previously put together an open-source, privacy-respecting version for her using a Raspberry Pi when she was three It was useful because there and four year olds can't easily do things adults can do; the voice interface was very handy.
Anyway, she really liked the Google Home smart speaker she had been given so I decided to let her use it. After a couple days she came to me and said "I think Google is listening to me when I'm not talking to it. How does it know when I'm talking to it? Take it out of my room, please." Smart four year old.
Re:4yo "I think Google is listening to me" (Score:4, Informative)
Lack of surprise (Score:2)
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Because we're getting used to it. Everyone is getting used to it. Just like speed cameras. When they're installed, everyone thinks "Well, I know where they are, I'm not gonna get caught". First thing you know, the boxes are printing monies. And you get a ticket too.
I remember that everyone out there said "I'm never gonna let surveilance devices into my home". Look where we are. Alexa. Google Home. Your frickin smartphone. They're all listening, and nobody cares anymore.
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It's almost as if you think you have expectation of privacy when you're driving on a public road.
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Unfortunately, even the places where you'd expect privacy, there no longer is. We all bring our cellphone to the sh**room and use it.
So essentially, the toilet is the new public road.
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Because we're getting used to it.
No, because it is COMMON SENSE.
Companies are developing and delivering "AI" systems that need to identify "threat" vs. "non threat" in video, or respond to commands in normal speech from humans. This AI needs training to work well. After initial training, the results need to be evaluated to make sure the system is doing what it is supposed to do, and to identify areas where improvement is necessary.
Why is improvement necessary? BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE PAYING FOR THIS SERVICE AND EXPECT IT TO WORK RIGHT.
The
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Snowden Should Have Taught Everyone (Score:5, Insightful)
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The watchers do have watchers, but they're not watching out for you.
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The watchers do have watchers, but they're not watching out for you.
Yep. Of course someone is watching the watchers, but all they're doing is making sure the watchers are hitting their quotas.
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"You're not important enough to watch!"
I used to hear this a lot from people whom I later discovered were actually the very same ones who had been watching me the whole time.
How long (Score:2)
$30 why not? (Score:2)
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The usual (Score:2)
Re:The usual (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously, I think that nobody cares anymore about that shit. They're just not going to respond anything. It is now a mostly accepted fact that there are cameras everywhere and that you can potentially be watched - even in your home - by the company you bought it from.
they saw people having sex? (Score:2)
that's disgusting. the people doing it should be named and publicly shamed. no one should be having sex, ever
Hyperbole (Score:2)
I'm just bothered by the hyperbole. Yes, invasion of privacy, actual humans, blah blah blah. But :
but for now AI needs human assistance. Lots of it.
Come on now - 150 recordings x 30 seconds x "dozens of employees" (call it 50) => 62.5 collective hours / day of reviewed videos. Compared to (just guessing) 1 million devices, always recording x 24 hours / day. As a % of collective time, we're at ~0.00003% (if I counted my 0s right).
C'mon man - there aren't many complex "automated" systems that need l
Yes but but... (Score:3)
... I have nothing to hide!
Re: Nothing to hide? (Score:2)
Nothing?
Oh, I see you now dancing around without any clothes on not realising that that Camera was always on.
Pay me $100,000 or those pictures go public? {I am joking}
but that shows just how dangerous this stuff is but people are walking onto 1984 with a smile on their faces and happy to pay for it.
IMHO, the Facebook Portal is even more dangerous.
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Stupid enough to use those "cloud" cams? (Score:2)
Then don't cry me a f**** river when a photo of you and your wife (or better your mistress), your children, ... will be "leak" on the web.
No news here! (Score:3)
And there is nothing the government or any entity will do about it because the corps have purchased the rights from government(bureaucrats and politicians) to collect and monetize the data
Just my 2 cents
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Hah! Take that, surveillance state!
MTurk (Score:2)