At least, on mobile devices, it's typically easier to install a privacy-focused firmware (like LineageOS or GrapheneOS). Those AI assistants are completely locked down.

1. Unplug your amazon echo devices

2. Hit it with a hammer

3. Send it to an electronics recycler

Do the device you wrote this on have a microphone?

Phones are at least easier to justify since everyone kinda needs one now and there aren't many great private options, especially for the lay person

Which Echo devices ever supported local only processing? They cost about £30. There's no kit that can do decent voice commands for that money. You'd be lucky to have a device that processes claps to turn the lights on for that.

And for now it's voice assist is garbage in comparison. I have home assistant, and a few Alexa units, so I set up nabu and tried it, but it's slow and can maybe do 1 in 5 commands, while Alexa is much more reliable.

Lmao. Why complain about one and try to justify the other...

True, but a mobile phone is basically a world brain, calculator, camera, flashlight, you can watch movies on it in hi def, hate it all you want, it's one of the most versatile tools on the planet.
An echo dot, it just spy garbage and nothing else

They typed from their device that is also spying on them that they most likely also paid for...

I mean what better spot to syphon of each and every piece of information about you....

If you give up your freedom for convenience, then you will lose both.

Yes, but they'll conveniently ignore that on devices they are addicted to.

I am sorry but the telephony system itself is fundamentally a privacy threat.

@richardisaguy @Tea sometimes they just come free with stuff. We got given two Google ones when my husband bought a Pixel phone. We were going to sell them on but we never got round to it. You can physically turn off the microphone part though (at least it tells you it's turned off so fingers crossed) so we use the one with a screen as a digital photo frame (and a speaker) and the other one as just a speaker.

If you were using one, you were already okay with this.

Yeah. Hell, chances are they were already

I mean, it's not convience. It's outright necessary for most jobs.

I meant they're easier to justify in the sense that I see why people don't put much thought into putting a spying device in their pocket, not that I agree with the disregard. Most peoples' friends, family, employers, etc. all expect them to have a cell phone and be available by it. Additionally, the way most people interact with their phones, the spying is much less obvious. They joke about them "always listening", but a lot of people don't understand the privacy concerns of pretty typical internet use, so the fact that the device has more than just a microphone, it appears to be worth it to a more typical consumer than us.

Contrast that with an Alexa, google home, or apple home thing, devices which nobody cares if someone else doesn't own, which most people only see as a microphone and speaker, and whose primary functionality is to always be listening to you. The skepticism is much easier to arise.

I'm not saying the level at which cell phones spy on their users is acceptable or even worth it, just that I see why the average user who isn't conscious of their privacy doesn't regard them with the same concern they do smart speakers.

My mom has one of those Google ones, I hate it.