You can't trust the large companies who have a culture of profiting off your data to protect your privacy.
This is why we need AI at the edge, and not in the clouds, and Privacy-by-design thinking in our architectures. This is the only way for people to know their data won't be compromised and misused, because it never leaves their devices.
Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder of https://snips.ai and we are building a 100% on-device and private-by-design platform to build Voice AI assistants
What's up with the animated drawing on your front page of an alien poorly disguised as a human female at a picnic using voice to control her music player? It's kind of distracting--I keep staring at it instead of reading the site.
I infer that she's an alien for three reasons.
First, her head is on backwards compared to human heads.
Second, she appears to have only one upper arm, attached to her left shoulder, which forks at the elbow into two lower arms, one of which is going behind her back over to her right side. The forearms are also about twice as long as human forearms.
Third, the neck is way longer than human necks, but quite consistent with many the aliens some people have claimed to have seen.
Seriously...is this some recognized art style? I don't know much about art, but I do recall that around the late 19th/early 20th century there were some prominent artists and styles that took big liberties with human anatomy.
It's well drawn sufficiently (as are the other drawings on your site) that it gives the impression that the artist is referencing something known.
Have you run into any problems improving or training your algorithm if you're limiting the data it has access to? What are some of the things you've done that make you "wish" you could be an online off-device tool?
I ask because most of what we hear is that online tools will get better over time because you are sharing your data. How do you work around this, or is that even an obstacle?
Although the user who complained about your using HN to post about this broke the guidelines by being uncivil, they do appear to have a point: it looks like you've been using HN exclusively to promote your own stuff. That's not what the site is for.
There's nothing wrong with posting links to your own work when it's relevant, but please don't use HN only for this. The site is intended for intellectual curiosity, i.e. submitting, reading, and commenting on stories that you run across and personally find interesting. So if you use it exclusively for promotion, you're not really participating in the community as intended. Does that make sense?
Oh, this looks cool. I was looking into building something with a respeaker not too long ago. How does your business model work that you're letting people DIY for free?
A USB microphone... That's a bummer. I was hoping that Zigbee or Z-wave based mics already exist. Do they? Every time I look at the landscape of home automation it's really hard to avoid clouds and Wifi.
I had problems setting up Snips on an RPI - couldn't figure out how to read the MQTT bus messages after I set up the audio successfully. Where do I go for help?
what's your business model if everyone can download and build their own image, or even re-distribute that in their own products?
as far as Alexa goes, I unplugged it a few months ago and it's collecting dust now, I use my cellphone to check weather and for alarm clock instead, I don't see much use for Alexa other than those two simple tasks.
Yes, we know. You post to literally every voice-assistant related comment thread. If you aren't a bot, you must have a (voice powered?) bot sniffing out threads to post on.
If you're going to do that, please at least learn the difference between a disclaimer and a disclosure. :sigh:
The things people are willing to give up for the most minimal of conveniences are only going to get worse in the next decade.
I wouldn't be willing to put an open wiretap in my home, even if it did something amazing, like extend my lifespan. The quality of my life is not significantly improved with these devices, and all of their practical uses can be duplicated with the minimal effort of tapping a screen a couple of times.
> I wouldn't be willing to put an open wiretap in my home... all of their practical uses can be duplicated with the minimal effort of tapping a screen a couple of times.
I've never understood this argument. Why is the portable wiretap in your pocket inherently safer?
I'm seriously shocked by the number of people that are putting always on "assistants" in their home - but more so on the number of people that should know better, like HN people.
In past discussions, I was led to believe we were safe from these devices, in terms of pervasive data collection, because the main processor that was always running was primitive and was only powerful enough to pick up a key phrase. This phrase would power the main processor which would then listen to your query, respond, and then deactivate. But now, as the article mentions, I realize that this initial processor could be made to listen for many key words like "love", "hate", or other words that would pick up on sensitive personal information. I really don't think these devices should exist.
> because the main processor that was always running was primitive and was only powerful enough to pick up a key phrase
That's only true if you're trying to do complex analysis on the device. Cell phones in the early 1990s had even less computing power, but it was enough to encode speech down to 13.2 kbit/s[1] (or 5.6 kbit/s[2]). A simple noise gate[3] would reduce recording duty cycle down to maybe 1% while costing a trivial amount of CPU load.
Modern hardware - even tiny embedded devices - can probably do a lot more than simple gat4ed+compressed audio.
> including an “algorithmic transparency requirement” that would help people understand how their data was being used and what automated decisions were then being made about them.
This needs to be required for any type of algorithmic decision making. Without algorithmic transparency ulterior motives, intentional or unintentional biases, and unnoticed mistakes are hidden from public review.
A common response is that we don't know how some types of machine learning make their decisions. I agree this is occasionally true. Find a way generate an explanation, or use a different algorithm; transparency is a critical requirement.
Companies use patents defensively and the Times is fully aware of that so this comes across as cynical clickbait.
What I find interesting is that they keep quoting "consumer watchdog" an anti google organization turned anti technology (they're against self driving cars and robots now).
The scary thing is that mainstream respected news outlets casually traffic in technophobia as evident form articles about automation and AI for example and how every piece mentioning a tech company is permeated with FUD about their motivations or their "power".
Why don't we have open-source voice-assistants yet? I mean, if we can have an open-source OS (e.g. Linux), then surely we can have open-source speech recognition, right?
We are building this at https://snips.ai (disclaimer: I'm a co-founder). You can build 100% on-device Voice AI assistants which are running on a Raspberry Pi 3, and we are open-sourcing the platform
Voice assistants are difficult, both electro-acoustically to get a good clean voice signal from the ambient room noise and voice-assistant generated audio (this is called barge-in), as well as the software to actually parse that speech. A great open-source voice-assistant is ambitious.
But why isn't there a great open-source version of any $iot_appliance? IOT, in general, is crawling with companies that are looking for a monthly cash flow, and are therefore creating an ecosystem of non-federated, walled garden type devices that report back to some central server to keep the user dependent upon and paying monthly cash to some company. All of these IOT projects are generally simpler than voice-assistants, and I look forward to the day when we have IOT projects that talk to each other or a local server, without linking us to some company forever.
With a court order can authorities turn on the microphone and just listen to everything? Seems easy to do but I haven't heard about it yet. I guess phones can do the same. Presumably the Russians and Chinese do this already. :)
A warrant is required only as long as "voice assistant" technology "is not in general public use"[1]. Kyllo v United States created a bright-line[3] test that removes the warrant requirement to see "details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion"[2] when use of the technology is normalized.
Note that this removes the warrant requirement in general, even if you personally don't own an Alexa/etc. The test is if the public expects audio in the home might be recorded and sent to a 3rd party. If the answer is "yes", then the police can use their own hardware to do the recording.
Why would you possibly think you'll hear about times governments forced companies to turn these into wiretaps? You won't until you do - but then you'll know it was going on for years.
If you're not planning to release your own hardware, could you provide a list of devices that the software is tested with? I looked on the site a bit but the crazy art thing triggered my ADHD and OCD as well. I imagine the idea is that you can compile it for whatever device on any platform with some change but makes it harder for community engagement without a go to for sure platform to test some builds and POCs.
One application details how audio monitoring could help detect that a child is engaging in “mischief” at home by first using speech patterns and pitch to identify a child’s presence, one filing said. A device could then try to sense movement while listening for whispers or silence, and even program a smart speaker to “provide a verbal warning.”
This worries me. First the children are watched 24/7, them the adults.
[+] [-] oulipo|8 years ago|reply
This is why we need AI at the edge, and not in the clouds, and Privacy-by-design thinking in our architectures. This is the only way for people to know their data won't be compromised and misused, because it never leaves their devices.
Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder of https://snips.ai and we are building a 100% on-device and private-by-design platform to build Voice AI assistants
We would be happy to know what you do with it! You can take a look at what some people have built with it already https://github.com/snipsco/awesome-snips
We are open-sourcing it over time, starting with the NLU: https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source-priv.... Snips is available in English, French, German, and soon Japanese and Korean with more European languages coming this year.
You can start building your own private-by-design smart speaker on the platform in under 1h with this tutorial: https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home...
[+] [-] tzs|8 years ago|reply
What's up with the animated drawing on your front page of an alien poorly disguised as a human female at a picnic using voice to control her music player? It's kind of distracting--I keep staring at it instead of reading the site.
I infer that she's an alien for three reasons.
First, her head is on backwards compared to human heads.
Second, she appears to have only one upper arm, attached to her left shoulder, which forks at the elbow into two lower arms, one of which is going behind her back over to her right side. The forearms are also about twice as long as human forearms.
Third, the neck is way longer than human necks, but quite consistent with many the aliens some people have claimed to have seen.
Seriously...is this some recognized art style? I don't know much about art, but I do recall that around the late 19th/early 20th century there were some prominent artists and styles that took big liberties with human anatomy.
It's well drawn sufficiently (as are the other drawings on your site) that it gives the impression that the artist is referencing something known.
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
Excellent! How will you guarantee that your devices will not leak data?
[+] [-] bargl|8 years ago|reply
I ask because most of what we hear is that online tools will get better over time because you are sharing your data. How do you work around this, or is that even an obstacle?
[+] [-] dang|8 years ago|reply
There's nothing wrong with posting links to your own work when it's relevant, but please don't use HN only for this. The site is intended for intellectual curiosity, i.e. submitting, reading, and commenting on stories that you run across and personally find interesting. So if you use it exclusively for promotion, you're not really participating in the community as intended. Does that make sense?
[+] [-] ryan-c|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] old-gregg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cevn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ausjke|8 years ago|reply
as far as Alexa goes, I unplugged it a few months ago and it's collecting dust now, I use my cellphone to check weather and for alarm clock instead, I don't see much use for Alexa other than those two simple tasks.
[+] [-] leeoniya|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonoholic|8 years ago|reply
Yes, we know. You post to literally every voice-assistant related comment thread. If you aren't a bot, you must have a (voice powered?) bot sniffing out threads to post on.
If you're going to do that, please at least learn the difference between a disclaimer and a disclosure. :sigh:
[+] [-] fortythirteen|8 years ago|reply
I wouldn't be willing to put an open wiretap in my home, even if it did something amazing, like extend my lifespan. The quality of my life is not significantly improved with these devices, and all of their practical uses can be duplicated with the minimal effort of tapping a screen a couple of times.
[+] [-] cptskippy|8 years ago|reply
I've never understood this argument. Why is the portable wiretap in your pocket inherently safer?
[+] [-] SlowRobotAhead|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spacehome|8 years ago|reply
The problem is not understanding the tradeoffs or even not understanding that there's a choice at all.
[+] [-] z_open|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdkl95|8 years ago|reply
That's only true if you're trying to do complex analysis on the device. Cell phones in the early 1990s had even less computing power, but it was enough to encode speech down to 13.2 kbit/s[1] (or 5.6 kbit/s[2]). A simple noise gate[3] would reduce recording duty cycle down to maybe 1% while costing a trivial amount of CPU load.
Modern hardware - even tiny embedded devices - can probably do a lot more than simple gat4ed+compressed audio.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Rate
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_Rate
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_gate
[+] [-] pdkl95|8 years ago|reply
This needs to be required for any type of algorithmic decision making. Without algorithmic transparency ulterior motives, intentional or unintentional biases, and unnoticed mistakes are hidden from public review.
A common response is that we don't know how some types of machine learning make their decisions. I agree this is occasionally true. Find a way generate an explanation, or use a different algorithm; transparency is a critical requirement.
[+] [-] sqdbps|8 years ago|reply
What I find interesting is that they keep quoting "consumer watchdog" an anti google organization turned anti technology (they're against self driving cars and robots now).
The scary thing is that mainstream respected news outlets casually traffic in technophobia as evident form articles about automation and AI for example and how every piece mentioning a tech company is permeated with FUD about their motivations or their "power".
[+] [-] brynjolf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oulipo|8 years ago|reply
You can take a look at our blog to get started if you want to build your own assistant: https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home...
[+] [-] robotrout|8 years ago|reply
But why isn't there a great open-source version of any $iot_appliance? IOT, in general, is crawling with companies that are looking for a monthly cash flow, and are therefore creating an ecosystem of non-federated, walled garden type devices that report back to some central server to keep the user dependent upon and paying monthly cash to some company. All of these IOT projects are generally simpler than voice-assistants, and I look forward to the day when we have IOT projects that talk to each other or a local server, without linking us to some company forever.
[+] [-] eikenberry|8 years ago|reply
https://mycroft.ai/
https://snips.ai/
[+] [-] bluGill|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rb808|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdkl95|8 years ago|reply
Note that this removes the warrant requirement in general, even if you personally don't own an Alexa/etc. The test is if the public expects audio in the home might be recorded and sent to a 3rd party. If the answer is "yes", then the police can use their own hardware to do the recording.
[1] http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright-line_rule
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SlowRobotAhead|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] r3nrut|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|8 years ago|reply
This worries me. First the children are watched 24/7, them the adults.
[+] [-] peg_leg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Johnny555|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wackspurt|8 years ago|reply
I wonder how human intrigues (and the literature/narratives around it) will be affected by ubiquitous computing and networking.
[+] [-] akeck|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] musage|8 years ago|reply
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