Facebook confirmed to Bloomberg that contractors transcribed Messenger voice chats to determine
Why did they stop
The company reports that all datawere anonymous and obtained solely from people who volunteered to be transcribed. But despite this, this practice had to be suspended more than a week ago.
The problem is the lack of transparency.TaskUs contractors were not told where the audio came from or why they were transcribing it. As a result, some workers thought their work was “unethical,” especially when some conversations contained personal information.
As with voice assistants,there is a concern that employees may eavesdrop on confidential information and potentially misuse it for their own purposes. The company has long faced accusations of wiretapping phones for advertising purposes. And after being fined $5 billion for privacy violations, Facebook probably didn't want to risk further government scrutiny.
Why was it necessary
The challenge is to balanceprivacy with technical needs. There is still a lot of room for improvement in AI decoding and it is difficult to improve accuracy without good examples. If Facebook were to permanently end its program, the company would need to find another way to improve AI. Otherwise, it will remain at the same level as now.