Amazon employees are listening to Alexa

Amazon listens to people talking to Alexa voice assistant to make it smarter.

What is known

Several anonymous Amazon employees toldthat they listen to up to a thousand voice requests from users every day. All who are engaged in decoding, sign documents about non-disclosure of information. According to the company, customer privacy is very important to them. Therefore, they process only a small part of the records and use the data only to improve Alexa's artificial intelligence. Also, workers do not see information about the names and places of residence of people, but there is access to the name and serial number of the device.

Employees listen and comment on conversations withcolumn and then send them back to the system. It helps to improve the process of understanding requests by voice assistant. Especially when it comes to different languages ​​and dialects that were not considered in the development process. Amazon says:

"The more data we use for learningthese systems, the better is Alexa, and training Alexa with voice recordings from various clients ensures that Alexa works well for everyone. ”

There have been cases when workers have heard the personal information of users, like a crying child or singing in the shower. Once, two employees even stumbled upon a record that sounded like harassment.