Amazon recently disabled two important privacy features on Alexa smart speakers for its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered “agentic capabilities” as well as to make it turn a profit.
Because of this, Alexa will send all audio recordings to the cloud for processing from March 28 onwards, according to a report by The Conversation.
Users will have a setting called “Don’t save recordings”, which, if enabled, will delete cloud recordings after they’re processed. However, if this is enabled, Amazon’s Voice ID and personalised features like user-specific calendar events will stop working.
The saved recordings, however, are used for the Voice ID feature, which distinguishes between speakers in the same household and aims to provide a personalised experience.
This is because using the cloud is one of the most accurate ways to help the AI match a spoken command to an action, as compared to processing commands on the device itself.
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Amazon is doing this because it needs its Echo devices to start making money. The company has sold over 500 million Alexa devices, but between 2017 and 2021 alone, it lost more than US$25 billion due to this, according to the report.
The main way Amazon can make money out of “agentic capabilities” is by something known as “platform capitalism” wherein the company gets paid by service providers like airlines or restaurant reservation companies when Alexa refers customers to them.
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How to protect your privacy
The privacy settings can be accessed from the Alexa app under “More > Alexa Privacy.” Users can also go to “Manage your Alexa Data” to choose how long the recordings are saved for and which voice recordings to delete.
However, those who are not comfortable with the privacy settings can also look for alternatives since this is a trade-off between privacy and functionality.
