[lesinski]

This reminds me of when people are watching YouTubeTV and they see an ad for something they were talking about and are like, "Woah, it must be listening to us!"

When actually, modern ML can make really good guesses about ad relevancy using your location, data partners and recent searches from your home's IP address. When you explain this to people, they will still be convinced that the computer is listening to you and reasoning its way to deliver ads for you.

[leptons]

>and recent searches from your home's IP address

This is the "Woah, it must be listening to us" part. Because it is listening, not only just sound.

[Spivak]

The part that is crazy is when it's able to piece something together that neither I nor my partner have searched for, looked at, seemingly given any digital trail for outside of talking about it between ourselves. Which is why I think people assume it must be mic data but that undersells the magic, it would still work even if your phones were miles away.