Behind Every Robot Is a Human
Hundreds of human reviewers across the globe, from Romania to Venezuela, listen to audio clips recorded from Amazon Echo speakers, usually without owners’ knowledge, Bloomberg reported last week. We knew Alexa was listening; now we know someone else is, too.
This global review team fine-tunes the Amazon Echo’s software by listening to clips of users asking Alexa questions or issuing commands, and then verifying whether Alexa responded appropriately. The team also annotates specific words the device struggles with when it’s addressed in different accents.
According to Amazon, users can opt out of the service, but they seem to be enrolled’s report—a woman overheard singing in the shower, a child screaming for help—the users seem unaware of the device.
