Hey Siri! Are Our Devices Always Listening? | Corridor Cast EP 

Sam’s neutrality in these controversial topics is not only applaudable but also hilarious to watch 😂😂

I agree with niko so much, I’ve been noticing for a few years especially in college needing answers often, Google barely knows how to answer things anymore. It use to actually give you something that someone wrote with some care, but now it’s paragraphs upon paragraphs of useless info. And I too have been going to forums more for information.

I appreciate Sam being there to break up jake and Nikos legal banter :')

The Wren Cameo at 6:25 !!!

Wow.. Why do I have this urge to draw Niko like one of my french girls? :O

So bizarre that the device always listening/recording is still debated. Im so confused why. The entire reason Snowden had to run to other countries was for revealing this is happening. FBI proved this true during the making of eagle eye back in '08 and Shia showed proof in a talkshow after. Xbox Connect was also discontinued shortly after this, in the terms and conditions stated the devices 3d tracking was always on. Hence you could wave at anytime and turn on the console. To much evidence devices do this to state otherwise so its strange to hear Niko so combative against the notion.

6:39 :D

honestly the A.I influencer is funny as hell. I love when she's panicking about something then out nowhere starts dancing

YO! is Arrested Development being played on the screen behind Nick?!?! I'm pretty sure it is and now I'm happier.

VFX iron chef was heaps of fun. I'd love to see more.

41:31 "I've got terms of service in front of me" i fucking died laighing and woke up family members

I can't remember his name for life of me now but he was on The Joe Rogan podcast but the man himself the guy who created the Facebook ad targeting software has said that it is far too expensive and far too complicated for companies and cell phones to be listening in on us. Immediately followed by him stating that we do it for free voluntarily. You people are so concerned with your privacy while you willingly sign it away.

Sorry Niko - I have to vehemently disagree with you that devices are listening to us. Passive listening devices get constantly triggered accidentally at a high rate - it is in companies' best interest to process any triggered audio using increasingly-trivial (ML-driven) speech-to-text technology, all of which can happen at a firmware or on-device level. This level of processing is baked into ToS of these voice systems. As for the battery cost you refer to, it is totally feasible to write software that batches recognized keywords and sends them off when the device is charging or in another low-power-usage scenario. Google/Amazon/whoever do not need this information synchronously. Also, the fact that the trigger keyword is baked into the hardware does not exclude software triggers from being used. ML is getting really, really good at saving resources and performance. Again, it's in companies' best interest to collect as much analytics as possible from users (which doesn't need to be done through recording, just keyword recognition). Anecdotally, I have had several instances where I had private, in-person conversations about topics I have never searched about, but received ads related to those conversations in the days following. After removing our Google Home and disabling Google Assistant, I have not experienced any more occurrences since.

Don't have a huge following but would love to help in anyway I can!

Sam is consistently one of the funniest dudes I've seen. Also have a great day everyone!

Do more VFX iron chef. Loved the first episode and it needs to be a series.

Stoked to see Arrested Development on in the background. I knew you lads had good taste around there.

I'm surprised that Niko isn't willing to at least give into the idea that, not all the time, but at least some of the time, google is listening to a conversation and sometimes google will suggest search results based on it. This has been tested on a desktop and it clearly happens when you sit on a google page, so why not on a phone? I get it, battery power. But just at least entertain the fact that it is listening sometimes, not all the time, it is possible. Obviously that is not the main source of information for suggested results, but it can be one of them,

LOL all I can imagine is Sam being that guy from the video “the slap”

Are our phone listening to us? I cannot afford a Grand Wagoneer. I did not know they existed. I saw one for the first time last week while driving: - I read the name out loud - I arrived at my destination and said the name twice to my friend asking if he knew about them - I never searched for it on my phone/laptop/computer/carrier pigeon/etc.. Within 24 hours I had ads for Grand Wagoneers. I use a Google Pixel 3a. - Tristan

I tested it... I think they record it with some sort of speak to text and then send the data at first opportunity that's why the ads don't show up for a day or so.

Damn that respeecher idea sounds great! And the concept of being able to use something like that to translate vids & films in the future would be amazing. Especially if it was able to keep the same tone and performance.

Phones are not listening 24/7 but they are tracking you in many different ways. For example. My brother and I talking about replacing gutters for a house we are working on. Us searching on our devices ended up showing our mom advertisements for the gutters after she stopped by the house we were working at. Even with GPS off google can track and correlate data to you from blue tooth, wifi, nfc and your contacts in general. The call alone to us probably prompted google to show her at least 1 ad for things we were interested in. You only notice it because you are aware, you dont notice the 100 other ads that were not relevant to you.

While I usually agree with Niko's level headed takes on things, I have to side with Jake on the issue of device listening. In my own opinion, I think it's hopefully optimistic to believe that a company wouldn't try to capitalize on that kind of user data that exists in these legally/morally gray zones. It's a good point to bring up terms and services because it's something we all agree to in order to participate and use these devices and services and it's definitely at the compromise of the users private data. These issues are still so relatively new and everchanging in the eyes of the law by what is considered to be acceptable. John Oliver just recently did a whole segment on Data Brokers and the very dark shades of grey in which they operate, so I don't think it's that wild of an idea to belive that companies are using compromising user data in ways in which people aren't fully aware of.

I love it when Jake and Nikko talk big tech and constitutional rights :D

what could be happening is that while a device might not be triggered to send any packets through network, it could be storing some specific keywords on the device itself and sending this data whenever it establishes a connection for any other reason, what we know for sure is that the microphone IS always listening and most of the devices come with a generous amount of RAM, and that text strings or even compressed audio takes only a tiny amount of space so I wouldn't say it's that hard to store a very long amount of audio or speech for a very extended amount of time on these devices before being sent through network. This of course doesn't prove anything, but my personal (biased) experience is that you could be talking about something that you never mentioned in a few years for a very specific use case to someone who is by no means related to said item, and then bring up your phone and the first Ad you see is the exact thing you're talking about, happened to me at least two times which is not much but considering how specific the Ads were it really felt suspicious.

Watching Arrested Development from the background of the podcast > Watching Arrested Development on Netflix

XD Jake is right. It's absolutely true that the actual Alexa/Siri type of traffic is not sent or put into the package profiles and stored. And it's the case that there is no software running around analyzing recorded files of voice for keywords. Nor is any "AI" involved with decoding grammar and the subject of the conversation. None of that is done, or sent to any online server in the first place. That's not how this works. If it was, it wouldn't work. It'd be as unreliable as an AI influencer. And this type of "store voice data" idea was actually specifically shot down, many years ago, for the specific concerns that anyone with a brain would have about any of this. But it's also 100% specifically illegal even in the US, because it's covered by laws that apply to phone lines and telex and letters and things like that (not being sarcastic here - cyberlaws are a bit spotty). But what is absolutely in the software on the phones is a way to generate keywords that will now be impersonalized as they are stored. And you might also get, and this is entirely real, get very specific recommendations based on data that would be only on your phone (and not gathered by tying your traffic history to semi-persistent IDs that are tied to you in every way that matters). So Google, for example, has literally said "Audio snippets are not associated with user accounts." Like.. are they recorded in the first place, right? But that's not what is being done. Facebook valiantly "bans" and blocks anyone using mic-inputs as a basis for ads as well. You could possibly defend that as "it was a concern" and they reacted to that, to quash a scandal. But this type of speech-based advertisement has been on the calendar for a long time. There is entirely non-conspiracy type entirely non-complicated tech on storing and recalling phone-calls based on "metadata" in terms of date and time and so on. And the advertisement avenue into this has been talked about a lot. I thought it was curious that the police could search sms-history on sweep-searches. But I wasn't thrilled in 2003 or so when I saw examples of entire conversations being pulled up from months ago - in an entirely non-regulated way. There was a small scandal about this a while back, with this guy you've basically made into a traitor. That storage of this since after digitization happened does exist, and is specifically used and stored longer than necessary. But no one remembers that, I guess. But that's not the avenue that's being used here. In this case with the google ads (with the google assistant, that you may or may not be able to remove or even stop the service for on your phone), that is not what is being done at all. That way lies warrants and possible illegality. No, what's done is generating keywords (as easily as if you would be dictating words into your messages). It's not stored on your profiles or online metadata -- but you get suggestions based on keyword data locally, from a small pool that expires quickly. And it's not stored then, unless you then visit those volatile suggestions and click it. Until then, this is not part of that selection-profile you generate from searches and cookies while logged in to google and facebook. The ads appear the same to you from the volatile data, as if they're based on search history and nearby activity. But it very literally occurs also when you haven't been visiting new places, haven't engaged with google recommendations, and haven't had anyone nearby you engaged in it, or after it trends in your area, or something new turns up for your age group or interest-profile. It still happens. Entirely real. And not illegal, because it's not storing your voice or anything personal. And it's generally seen - and I've gotten this lecture in person from advertisement folks selling you these packages, via firms similar to Cambridge Analytica - as better than typically to them entirely necessary and reasonable phone-tapping and spying programs, or various alternatives at getting at people's data directly. Because this type of keyword-generation technically is not good enough to actually be relied on for spying anyway. And so it's actually "preferable" to other methods. Because it's passive and not to be relied on directly, was the gist of that. It's safer for both advertisers and customers. They're entirely serious here. Meanwhile, of course nearby activity, nearby people activity is going to be more reliable. And of course there's going to be incidents where you only see a particular ad because you thought about that subject recently, and then notice this ad that has scrolled by fifty times before for the first time - and now you think google is reading your thoughts. We all know people like that. But that's not what is happening here. It's a passive way to let the device help you find more appropriate ads. And if you don't respond to it, it's gone, and no harm done, right? XD So it's as real as the phone in your hand, Nico. Or as real as Facebook trawling keywords in your PMs for advertisements. Which Facebook denied doing even when they were caught red handed. And they still said that it wasn't illegal - because why was that..? Because the keywords weren't tied to you as a user and then stored. And that's the standard. Since there's really no laws touching this indirect metadata-generation, and there won't be for a bunch of years yet in the US, I'm sure - this is legally unproblematic.

Corridor guys, love all the content you produce! I have an unusual question, what is the colour on the wall in the podcast room at corridor there? ❤

all the topics in this podcast are just mindblowing like so excited for the influencer thing, and then the thing that niko said about the unreal engine gaming the AI thing.

Kinda off topic but not really: I approve of the Arrested Development in the background

Can we please get an episode with Sam Nikko Jake Wren :) would be really cool :)

Jake totally would pronounce the silent "t" in "tarot". XD

Our phones are definitely listening in. People and I myself have talked about subjects and there in RU-vid and advertisers bring up a video or ad related to that subject. Skynet lmao. P.S. news channels showed Alexa was recording before they said "Hey Alexa". They caught domestic abuse incidents etc. Also your government have back doors to listen in if you are important enough to be listened to :S

Niko!!! The folks at Yes Theory would absolutely want to connect with you regarding the Ukraine translation AI voice. They are actively working to help refugees from Ukraine into Warsaw Poland!!

Need more Iron Artist. Hope there’s special guests like Beeple!

The more you're being aggressively interrupted, the more I love your voice of reason, Jake :) Especially with the cold definition what some words mean for each person (I believe misunderstanding resulting from the lack of such approach are base for many unneeded conflicts) I like when you guys discuss something, trying to voice different point of views and give arguments why some of them are valid or not - especially when you talk about something from the field of your expertise and bring highly valuable insight. But I get only annoyed when I hear logical fallacies, personal attacks or bullying instead, no matter how much laugh is attached. Regarding the slap conversation - when Sam said something like a slap is an acceptable social interaction (sorry for paraphrasing so briefly) around 47:30, I thought about situations where a woman gets verbally abused by men and responds with a slap. I think we've seen so many such scenes in films and TV Series, that we (as a society) would be much more willing to see a slap as an appropriate reaction. I wonder how much the actual person and our likes/dislikes make us apply different rules in a situation like that.

They aren't listening. They predicted your actions. They knew you were GOING to talk about it.

The only anecdotal evidence I have that makes me on Jake's side with the phone thing was a convo I had with a friend about something I had literally just thought of, and then less than 4 hours later we both had an ad for that SPECIFIC thing on Facebook.

Im kind of with Jake. It's not that it is listening to everything but if it is also keyed into the words like "fix", "car", "repair" and simply just increments some integer everytime it hears it, when it does sync back under normal use it can also report that near undetectably and base ads on that.

"Not from concentrate" I almost crashed my car laughing

there are places you can check your metadata in google ,and there are recordings of your voice, ofc its only a couple of snipets and not like a 24/7 multi terabite recordings of your every day. so ye they are allways listening but saving just some snipets, when you say some keywords and send those packets, they can change the keywords enytime they want without you knowing so saying something like (bomb, assasination or some other hard shit you wouldnt want to google) and save it. im only saying words like bombs etc etc could be keywords they record cuz when i found voice recordings of me when i was in the army engineer program talking explosives,traps,mines etc etc

6:39 LMAO I can't even

Happy Ramadan Corridor!

Lol Arrested Development in the background.

Jakes phone listening is easily explained: they make judgements based on information about you (data points as niko says) to get semi-accurate. Not completely accurate. But what brings it from "ok, well, so they have some data on me" to "holy shit is it listening to me?" is human confirmation bias. You talk about dogs, you open your phone, it shows you an ad for a Ford Mustang. Well, nothing to be concerned about. But someone else talks about maybe getting a dog, opens their phone, and holy smokes - it has an ad for DOG FOOD. What in the world? Does it KNOW they were talking about getting a dog? Just by sheer numbers this will happen to SOME people. The accuracy of their predictive methods based on data points doesn't have to be that good if they're hitting millions of users. Every so often, someone makes a connection like this and their confirmations bias makes them think its listening to them (what other explanation could there be after all!?) Coincidences like this happen all the time anyway, but with targeted ads and other targeted functionality with technology, its going to happen more and more often.

Smart assistants tend to listen once in a while without being called, to collect data for ad services & logistics and preserve battery. This function is in all smart ai devices including your phone. Some of the data was broken down by humans before but now its by machine as laws and privacy crackdowns on smart assistant companies occurred a few years back. Whatever that data is really used for is what is discussed.

Jake is the reason I watch this

Your phone simply connects data points with other users in your area. If a significant percentage of people are looking for apparel or house hold items it will recommend those to you. It's just coincidence if you happen to be talking about something your friend may have purchased or looked at.

Wren stole the show at 6:40

I've gone through my Google phone and disabled tracking and targeted ads, along with listening mic and saving voice data.

and why is niko so adamant on this lol

My friend made the cite you talked about in 19:49

There's a great Legal Eagle video on the slap topic. You should check it out.

Was anyone else just watching that show in the background the whole time?

what if it just saves up what it is listening for and then sends it over network to home base while it is looking up the other stuff you asekd it

Wren in the background like 💃

I have had many occasions where I have spoken to someone about a subject they love in detail and then had adverts for products associated with those subjects. I am no longer surprised when I get an advert to do with something I am not interested in but have recently spoken about so I do think Jakes point could be true

Phones are listening. No doubt about it. Its most noticeable when you're served multiple ads for something you have absolutely no interest in and would never buy...and then you remember the same thing had randomly come in converstion a few hours ago. Happens to me all the time. Theres no way an algorithm can predict and advertise things you don't want. Why would it even?

48:18 lol

I hope they don't have celebrities send "support" to Ukraine. I feel like that would go about as well as that time celebrities sang Imagine to people when covid came along.

drake and niko always arguing over phone privacy stuff CCXD

14:40 Yes, AI and just trash articles in general, have completely ruined google. You have to go to reddit or give up. Its such a shame.

I'm still listening to the cast BUT - Confirmed: f you're in the same location (specially regularly) as someone else who's searching on any device - you will get served similar ads. When it comes to voice processing - the bummer is that these are often affiliate companies. Disable your microphone for all other apps if your'e worried.

If Xxiera doesnt show us whats in the basement. We riot.

Hey guys, I noticed at like 1:05:50 that there's some kind of really high-pitched noise that's really irritating, you might want to have a look at what causes that! I'm not sure if it was in there the entire time, but I only noticed it in the recap/outro part.

The whole always listening thing is pretty interesting. Someone recently mentioned that their father who had ho Facebook account went to create one and it had a TON of information about them pre-filled...friends, family etc. suggestions all ready. The amount of information they collect on you is just nuts, even with just "social buttons" on sites alone and cookies and combining data from those.

A bot for bots is kinda like "Colossus: The Forbin Project"

Looks like Jake has been too long in Texas and it got him with all these theories :D :D

Corridor Crew (i.e. niko and wren) are on the cutting edge of deepfake tech. Why have we not seen an attempt to deepfake body performance, not just a facial performance. It would be a nightmare on the front end capturing the movements to train the deepfake, but wouldn’t that be an industry changer??

No one says anything around my phone and I'm still amazed by Google search predictions. Maybe it's reading my mind.

Jake doesn't seem to be listening to Niko's explanation on Alexas etc. at all. Yes, they're listening for trigger word(s), but no, there isn't a "short hop" to them listening to other stuff and jumping into action because they would've been found out in all the research that's done on them by third parties. This is the part Jake is blanking on completely. There are security researches who do this stuff all the time for a living.

Will corridor or anyone else reupload the Ai influencer videos to RU-vid for those who don't use TikTok? Maybe corridor could just upload them as unlisted and put the link in this episode description. Either way, great episode!

nah I disagree with Nikko on this one, couple of days ago my friends and I were talking about what foods to bring to a party, I verbally mentioned mac and cheese, half an hour later I went on instagram and there it was, kraft mac and cheese ad.. didn't have one before, never searched it up, definitely listening to us.

I think, in the distant future, AI will be the curators of human discussion, news, and information. Not that I think AI should control us (which is what obviously would happen with that) but that AI given good design by humans could better help us with that aspect of mass worldwide communication on the internet. Perhaps the answer to not being controlled by AI is that we should individually have AI we alter and control ourselves?

How "Shift" being snubbed at the Oscars shows that Hollywood no longer has it's finger on the pulse of everyday Americans. - Entertainment Weekly

I think Niko has a little too much faith in the integrity of Google, Apple and Amazon tbh.

Talk about the AI south korean presidential candidate 👌🏻

The process you are describing for producing the influencer content is essentially that used by evolution.

Since the influx of AI writers, Google flat out sucks.

about the slap incident, Imagine if Mel Gibson did it, He was going to be escorted out with a drop of a hat

Niko is a robot. Case closed!!

We're all so distracted by our own goals and fears to stop and hold anyone accountable. The thought Sam has "someone else has spent more time getting to the bottom of this than us" will be the sea shanty we all sing to our Graves. Just think about how many topics in the last few years you've filed into that folder in your mind.

FOR THE BOTS, BY THE BOTS!

Xierra's mouth movements are cursed.

"Ask Me To Dance Movie, Two She's Casting, 🗽" You guys are Great! Definitely Watch that Movie when it Comes out 🗽🗽🗽💞⚓

The saddest part of the Rock/Smith thing was that people thought the willsmith on Twitter is the actor Will Smith and not a nerdy ex-Tested podcast host and game developer...no one bothers to check his profile or even profile pic :D His Twitter is ruined for probably months.

I hate Jake's incapability to listen to the other side at times, he tries to come off like he listens and cares about the other sides argument but its always just to play a game of semantics or to belittle the other argument and say his same talking points with no backing repeatedly.

niko is not arguing in good faith and attacking jake "btw is it encourage for lawyers to say 'y'know'"

I'm glad Niko was there to be the voice of reason the always-listening discussion. It was also very infuriating to see everyone repeatedly ignore what he was saying about being able to sniff network traffic and gravitate towards the conspiracy. SO many people use these devices that if they were doing such an obviously sketchy thing and secretly recording audio, they WOULD get discovered eventually and get into a lot of trouble. At least I don't think the big names - Google, Apple, Amazon - would take that risk.

Jake "I'm not a conspiracy theorist" proceeds to cite nonspecific "studies" that say the conspiracy theory is true. Sounds a bit like a conspiracy theorist

It's unexceptionable what Will Smith did. It's sets a example for the 100s of thousands of kids/ young adults who watch these people like there gods or hero's.

Also, I *kind of* have a following? So I'd be down to help out if I'd be useful!

Reddit is definitely annoying sometimes, but clearly these guys don't do too much of the technical stuff in regards to the computer science of the tools the they use. They are so fortunate to be able to avoid placed like Stack Overflow. xP

If you leave every single subreddit with over 200k users, you will have a much better time. Also, I read in reddit that everything is real and upvoted it so it's real. But in all seriousness, reddit is great for specific small communities but terrible for anything general

3rd

1st

nico is wrong. your phone is always listening to you, at least when its unlocked, because how else would it know when you say ''okay google'' (or siri or cortana etc) if its not listening? The microphone must be on the whole time its unlocked, to know when your doing a speech search.

If your phone is constantly listening for "Hey, Siri" then what else can it be listening for?

Niko is again So condescending and dismissive. He acts like the arbiter of truth….. huge bummer :(