AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Smart speakers can be a real help in our homes. Baking cookies? Alexa, set a 15-minute timer. Left the game on in the living room? Alexa, turn off the TV. And, of course, Alexa, tune in to NPR. You get the point. But how much control do we have over how these devices use our voices? Last week, Amazon announced changes to its Echo devices and plans to disable an optional privacy setting. Jennifer Tuohy covers smart homes for The Verge and joins us now to explain. Welcome to the program.
JENNIFER TUOHY: Thank you. Very happy to be here.
RASCOE: Before we begin, I want to make a note that Amazon is one of NPR's current financial supporters.
Jennifer, can you tell us, technically, how do these Echo devices work currently? Like, after you tell Alexa what to do, what happens?
TUOHY: Yeah. So today, the audio of what you said is sent to the cloud and encrypted. And then when it's in the cloud, turned into text, and then the cloud models will figure out what it is that you meant to say, what you want it to do, and then route the request to the right place. Send it back to you, and do what you asked, such as turn on a smart home light or ask about the weather.
RASCOE: But tell us about this privacy setting that currently exists and what's changing with that.
TUOHY: On some Echo devices, you did have the option to enable a feature called Do Not Send Voice Recordings, and that meant it processes your voice locally on your Echo device, then sends that text transcript to the cloud to do everything that we just described. Amazon has said that on March 28, if you had this setting enabled, it will be disabled and your voice recordings will be sent to the cloud. However, they will be deleted as soon as they've been processed in the cloud.
RASCOE: So why is Amazon making these changes?
TUOHY: They say there are a couple of reasons. The primary one is that this feature was very little used. They're also saying that one of the reasons that they're changing this function is because of their new generative AI-powered Alexa+ service, which is also launching sometime this month. Because it's generative AI-powered, that really needs the extra processing power of the cloud. So whilst they haven't specifically said, this is why we're doing this. The implication in their statement is they need the extra processing power of the cloud so that you get a good experience with this new feature that's arriving later this month.
RASCOE: And that new feature will use generative AI, and so presumably, maybe it would be able to answer questions better. My kids will ask them, what's the biggest number on Earth? And that's, like, not really a question that can really be answered, and I think Alexa gets confused.
TUOHY: Yes. Well, the new Alexa will probably have a good answer for that and maybe will chat away with your kids for a good half an hour about that problem.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: OK. OK.
TUOHY: Because the new Alexa is called Alexa+, and it is an entirely new voice assistant that is powered by large language models on par of what we're seeing with ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, much more capable assistant that can talk much more conversationally with you. But it is a bit of a shame because there are some privacy concerns around smart speakers.
RASCOE: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Like, is there a concern that by them having your voice, that they could somehow mimic your voice or someone could get hold of it or something like that? Is that a - the concern?
TUOHY: Amazon says voice recordings, when they're sent to the cloud, are encrypted. It's secure. You know, when it comes to tech companies protecting your data, Amazon is definitely in a position that have the power and the tools to do so, but ultimately, it comes down to whether you trust the company with your data. And if you're using Alexa devices, that's probably a decision you'd already made, but it's a shame that this option is going away. Personally, I would have liked to have seen it expanded to more of the Echo devices rather than go away, but it doesn't seem like it's in the roadmap for Alexa and Amazon's future.
RASCOE: That's Jennifer Tuohy of The Verge. Thanks so much for being with us.
TUOHY: You're very welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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