Google has an idea to prevent phone scams, but it'll mean allowing its AI to listen in on your calls
Google has an idea to prevent phone scams, but it'll mean allowing its AI to listen in on your calls
Google hopes its Gemini AI can provide real-time scam alerts during phone calls. But it'll mean allowing its AI to listen to your conversations.
Google promised to keep data from the phone calls private.
I already have a system where, if someone calls me, it's probably a scam.
If they leave a voicemail then its more legit but yea same here. I'd rather not have my phone calls be used as AI training.
That's how I know it's real. If they don't leave a message they don't care enough. The only people I want to talk to are like my doctors offices. My friends and family text and message.
I literally ignore all unknown numbers. I also ignore the doorbell if I don't expect someone or something. If it is important then just send me a letter.
One of the greatest moments in my life was when I was a young adult and realized I could just ignore someone at my door and leave them standing there. I didn't invite your ass to just show up so fuck right off.
Phone calls too. You better ask via text or something first if you expect me to stop what I'm doing to listen to your bullshit. Voicemail? Oh no, I never completed the setup so you can't leave a message. So sorry!
my system is if you're not in my contacts my phone doesn't ring.
Google promised
You mean the company that got rid of their previous motto of "do no evil"?
Cmon they pinky promised what else do you need ? Take that tinfoil hat off .
I wouldn’t even wipe my ass with Google’s “promise”.
Google already prevents 100% of the scams on my phone without doing this. I haven't had any spam or scam calls in years.
Google promised I lol'd
The company that sells your information to scammers has an idea on how to prevent them. What a load.
Google exists to make money off of you. Unless you are actually paying them, you are the product. It's that simple.
Take with a grain of salt any claims they make about you regarding services they will offer you for free.
Paying for a product doesn't mean you are not the product. Corpos will double dip when they have the option.
Modern cars collect huge amounts of data on their drivers despite the company making money from selling the car. Stores will sell your purchase history to advertisers. You can't trust any one with data about you.
Yes, excellent point. Realistically we should trust no one who stands to make money off of us, even if we are already giving them money.
Google literally pays this fake news site to post these clown ideas to see how public reacts to them.
Remember to not click that link :)
Don't feed the fake news machine, if Sundar the Creep wants your opinion, it can scrap it out of here
I don't think business insider qualifies as fake news site. Does it?
Business Insider was launched in 2007[7] and is based in Manhattan. Founded by DoubleClick's former CEO Kevin P. Ryan, Dwight Merriman, and Henry Blodget,[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Insider
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_P._Ryan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Blodget
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_P._Ryan
I doubt with a bench like that they report anything against their class or financial interest aka fake news for plebs to consume to get their thinking "right"
But either way, that article is paid advert/engagement slop masquerading as journalism.
It is truly a boring dystopia when we need AI to help protect ourselves against scammers. At least the overhyped buzzword found one application positive for humanity.
Don't worry everyone, I'm sure all the voice data will be anonymized.
What a coincidence!
As much as this is a fucking privacy nightmare, if it were an Opt-in only service it could be a godsend for the vulnerable and elderly.
The elderly have nothing to lose anymore since google accidentally deleted their pensions
nah I'll stick with steve smith trying to sell me car insurance for gift cards, ty
God, everyone, read the article, please. The feature in question uses an on-device AI model, meaning none of the audio or transcript leaves the phone. If Google wanted to secretly record and steal your phone transcripts they could do so already. They wouldn't need this feature.
Im sorry but are you high or something? You clearly understand enough about computers to know what those words mean, but you didnt even consider that google phones can do whatever they want with data thats "on-device". Every device with google services has a root backdoor. Ofcourse they will gather all that data, because why wouldnt they? They can also gather it on demand, because it will surely get logged on-device and can be extracted at any time. The rules could also be changed at any time without warning to allow them to collect the data or start using it in whatever ways they want.
Also even if they wouldnt collect the data, its a fucking horrible idea in the first place. Sure lets outsource trust in our communications to some shitty machine learning algorithm that is dumber than a fucking toddler.
Before I get deeper into this argument, the main point I was trying to make is that people are clearly assuming based on the headline that the transcript analysis happens in the cloud, and aren't aware of them at least claiming that it's fully on-device. If Google wants to steal phone transcripts, they can do this already, this feature doesn't change anything about it.
Also even if they wouldnt collect the data, its a fucking horrible idea in the first place. Sure lets outsource trust to an algorithm that is dumber than a fucking toddler.
The privacy discussion aside, the feature is designed to step in and warn the user when it detects a likely scam in progress. I don't see how this is inherently a bad idea at all. My grandma got scammed on the phone hardcore a few years back — this likely would've prevented it. And "outsourcing trust to an algorithm" is clearly not what's happening here. People get scammed all the time, clearly more needs to be done to stop scams.
Other than this... I know that people especially here are super wary of google and their privacy-related claims for very good reason. I am too. I know this is a very sensitive topic. But realistically, for this particular discussion...
"Ofcourse they will gather all that data, because why wouldnt they?"
There are so, SO many reasons why a massive company like Google, especially one that is constantly under scrutiny for their privacy practices, wouldn't secretly record / analyze / store / whatever private phone conversations and tbh most probably just aren't. There is immense regulation around this topic in practically all markets they operate in. If Google was found straight up sending transcripts of phone conversations to their servers without very explicit consent (aka more than some clause in ToS somewhere) it'd realistically be the biggest scandal in Google's history, and likely significantly hurt, if not kill, at least their phone division. In many markets just the recording of phone conversations is already illegal without consent from both sides, and Google can't just do it anyway based on some ToS legalese — it's just illegal.
I'm not trying to say that I don't believe they do this because they're good people or anything, but because from a pure business standpoint it'd be immensely risky for gathering data that is also hardly usable in practice due to how sensitive it is. The circle of people that would even be allowed to know of its existence internally would have to be tiny and extremely trusted to prevent leaks.
The truth is that they can amass so much data through other potentially dubious yet totally legal ways already, so an immense and illegal overstep of privacy convention like this is just unnecessary.
Sure lets outsource trust in our communications to some shitty machine learning algorithm that is dumber than a fucking toddler.
And it really doesn't need to be smarter than that, to show a "banks will never asks you to transfer money to another account, this is likely a scam" dialog when the speaker claiming to be from your bank tells you to do so. This will save lots of vulnerable and older people from getting scammed. If you think that's a horrible idea then I'm interested in your reasoning. Over $10 billion per year is lost to scams, making a dent in that is amazing.
Actually from what I've seen Google has moved hard towards reducing gathered data and encouraging play store apps to use less permissions and data.
I think they phrased that incorrectly. Don't they mean Google wants their AI to listen in on your conversations and in return they'll keep you safe. LOL.
Given the rarity in which I use my phone as a phone, they can knock themselves out with the bot call hangups that make up almost 100% of my call logs.
I hope this isn't enabled by default.
I don't need Google's help keeping my phone from getting spam calls.
I've had the tiny modicom of mindfulness required to keep myself from sticking my number everywhere. I can't believe this isn't curriculum for public schooling at this point. Spam calls should and could be a problem that dies with the earlier generations of cell phone users.
Part of the issue is the government's doing yes, but, the lack of laws protecting Cell phone users from spam calls does NOT mean we'll always have bunches of spam calls.
I very, very, rarely get spam calls. I'm talking like.... maybe one every 2-3 months.
I've had this same number since 2006, so its not like its new. I've just always avoided putting my number into forms/profiles of any kind until I've actually weighed the need to do so. Sure, its meant that I have declined many conveniences and have occasionally been made fun of or "missed out" over the years, though I'd say less so as I've aged.
I just treat my phone number with the same guardedness as I do my routing and accounting info.
The article discusses scam calls, not spam calls.
I got that fake Microsoft support scam call only once, back in early 2000s, on my parent's land line.
Spammers call random number in France, so not putting your number everywhere is useless.
Hey, apropos of nothing, does anyone else remember when Google's mission statement was simply "Don't Be Evil" but then had to amend that?
Did google pretty promised or pinky promise ?
Nope. No thanks. Noooo way.
People take voice calls in 2024?