[zmmmmm]

It's interesting to me that there seems to be an implicit line being drawn around what's acceptable and what's not between video and audio.

If there's a camera in an AI device (like Meta Ray Ban glasses) then there's a light when it's on, and they are going out of their way to engineer it to be tamper resistant.

But audio - this seems to be on the other side of the line. Passively listening ambient audio is being treated as something that doesn't need active consent, flashing lights or other privacy preserving measures. And it's true, it's fundamentally different, because I have to make a proactive choice to speak, but I can't avoid being visible. So you can construct a logical argument for it.

I'm curious how this will really go down as these become pervasively available. Microphones are pretty easy to embed almost invisibly into wearables. A lot of them already have them. They don't use a lot of power, it won't be too hard to just have them always on. If we settle on this as the line, what's it going to mean that everything you say, everywhere will be presumed recorded? Is that OK?

[BoxFour]

> Passively listening ambient audio is being treated as something that doesn't need active consent

That’s not accurate. There are plenty of states that require everyone involved to consent to a recording of a private conversation. California, for example.

Voice assistants today skirt around that because of the wake word, but always-on recording obviously negates that defense.

[zmmmmm]

Well, that's why I say "being treated"

I'm not aware of many bluetooth headphones that blink an obvious light just because they are recording. You can get a pair of sunglassses with a microphone and record with it and it does nothing to alert anybody.

Whether it's actually legal or not, as you say, varies - but it's clear where device manufactures think the line lies in terms of what tech they implement.

[paxys]

AI "recording" software has never been tested in court, so no one can say what the legality is. If we are having a conversation (in a two party consent state) and a secret AI in my pocket generates a text transcript of it in real time without storing the audio, is that illegal? What about if it just generates a summary? What about if it is just a list of TODOs that came out of the conversation?