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Elizabeth Weise, Alexa creepily recorded a family's private conversations, sent them to business associates," usatoday.com

Image from article, with caption: An "unlikely" string of events prompted Amazon's Echo personal assistant device to record a Portland, Oregon, family's private conversation and send it to an acquaintance in Seattle, the company said Thursday.

Excerpt:

First, Amazon said, the Echo woke up when someone in the home said something that sounded to it like “Alexa.”

Next, the subsequent conversation included something that, to Alexa, sounded like a “send a message” request.

At which point, Alexa said out loud, “To whom?”

Next, Alexa interpreted the background conversation as a name in the customers’ contact list.

Alexa then asked, again out loud, “[Contact name], right?”

Alexa then interpreted background conversation as confirming with, “Right.”

While such an improbable string of events doesn’t happen every day, with millions of smart speakers in American homes hearing tens of millions of conversations, it’s with the realm of probability. ...