Alexa
This article is a stub. You can help the IndieWeb wiki by expanding it.
Alexa is the trigger word or name for the Amazon Echo service and smart speaker.
IndieWeb Examples
No known IndieWeb related examples, e.g. using Alexa to control or browser your personal site perhaps.
Criticism
Removed do not send voice recordings option
"Starting on March 28, recordings of every command spoken to the Alexa living in Echo speakers and smart displays will automatically be sent to Amazon and processed in the cloud."
training using real conversations
- 2023-09-26 NBC News: Amazon will use real user conversations to train Alexa's AI model / The disclosure that Amazon would train its AI from real user conversations came in a Bloomberg TV interview.
Amazon announced new AI capabilities for its Alexa products last week, based on a model it’s calling AlexaLLM (LLM refers to the “large language model”). The technology will make Alexa “more personalized to your family” and allow it to remember relevant context throughout conversations like a human, Amazon said.
But along with those new capabilities, said Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, Dave Limp, Amazon would use some user voice interactions with Alexa to train its AI model.
Allegations of violating children’s privacy law
According to a complaint filed in May by the DOJ on behalf of the FTC, Amazon prevented parents from exercising their deletion rights under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA Rule) and kept sensitive voice and geolocation data for years and used it for its own purposes “while putting data at risk of harm from unnecessary access.”
- 2023-07-20 : Amazon Agrees to Pay $25 Million Fine to Settle Allegations Alexa Voice Assistant Violated Children’s Privacy Law (archived)