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只需要说出唤醒词，智能语音助手就能在线解答用户很多问题。在享受这种解放双手的便利的同时，你是否知晓你所付出的代价？
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01
How creepy is your smart speaker?
你的语音助手有多可怕？
Worries about privacy are overstated, but not entirely without merit. Your move, Alexa
对于隐私的担忧有些夸大其词，但是并非空穴来风。Alexa，你说呢？
May 11th 2019
“ALEXA, ARE you recording everything you hear?” It is a question more people are asking, though Amazon’s voice assistant denies the charges. “I only record and send audio back to the Amazon cloud when you say the wake word,” she insists, before referring questioners to Amazon’s privacy policy. Apple’s voice assistant, Siri, gives a similar answer. But as smart speakers from Amazon, Apple, Google and other technology giants proliferate (global sales more than doubled last year, to 86.2m) concerns that they might be digitally snooping have become more widespread. And now that these devices are acquiring other senses beyond hearing—the latest models have cameras, and future ones may use “lidar” sensors to see shapes and detect human gestures—the scope for infringing privacy is increasing. So how worried should you be that your speaker is spying on you?
”Alexa, 你一直在记录你所听到的吗？“越来越多的用户开始这样质问亚马逊的语音助手，而她一再否认这些指控。“只有当您说出唤醒词的时候，我才记录语音，并发送到亚马逊云。”她先这样强调，然后会向提问者提及亚马逊的隐私条例。苹果的语音助手Siri也给出相似的答复。但随着亚马逊、苹果、谷歌以及其他科技巨头公司的语音助手产品不断激增（全球语音助手销售额已达到8620万美元，同比增长一倍多），公众对语音助手可能会窥探用户数据的担忧变得更为普遍。而如今这些设备开始不止具备听觉的传感器——最新的款式具备摄像头，未来的语音助手还可能会借助光学雷达传感器来来感知人物形状、察觉用户手势——侵犯的隐私范围仍在扩大。如果你的语音助手在监视你，你会有多担心呢？
Notes
1. merit: n. the quality of being good and deserving praise
eg: Her ideas have merit.
Brierley's book has the merit of being both informative and readable.
2. Proliferate v. to increase a lot and suddenly in number
eg: Small businesses have proliferated in the last ten years.
3. infringe: v. Act so as to limit or undermine (something); encroach on.
eg:such widespread surveillance could infringe personal liberties.
For years the tech industry has dreamed of computing appliances that are considered unremarkable items of household machinery, like washing machines or fridges. The smart speaker has finally realised this promise. It can sit on a kitchen counter and summon the wonders of the internet without the need for swiping or typing. Using it is like casting a spell. Say the magic words and you can conjure up dodgy Eighties rock while up to your elbows in washing-up, or prove to your mum that Ronaldo has scored more goals than Messi. This hands-free convenience has a cost: the speakers are constantly listening out for commands. As with any advanced and apparently magical technology, however, myths quickly grow up about how they work.
这些年科技行业梦想着把不起眼的家用电器智能化，比如洗碗机、冰箱。智能语音助手最终实现了这个愿景。无需滑动屏幕，也无需输入指令，厨房柜台上的语音助手便能施展互联网的魔力。哪怕你忙于清洗餐具，只要说出“魔咒”就能召唤出八十年代的摇滚乐，或者向你妈妈证明罗纳尔多比梅西进球更多。这种解放双手带来的方便也是有代价的：智能语音助手时刻聆听指令。但所有先进神奇的技术都不免惹人口舌，越来越多的人也开始质疑智能语音助手的工作原理。
Notes
4. summon v. to order someone to come to or be present at a particular place, or to officially arrange a meeting of people.
eg: They should summon help immediately and activate the fire plan.
5. up to one's elbows in: Deeply involved in (a task or activity)eg: ’we're going to get up to our elbows in the selection process’
6. Conjure up: often conjure something up with object Cause (a spirit or ghost) to appear by means of a magic ritual.
eg:they hoped to conjure up the spirit of their dead friend
6.1Make (something) appear unexpectedly or seemingly from nowhere.eg: Anne conjured up a delicious home-made hotpot.6.2Call (an image) to the mind.eg: she had forgotten how to conjure up the image of her mother's face.6.3(of a word, sound, smell, etc.) cause someone to think of (something)eg: a special tune that conjures up a particular time and place.
So start with some myth-busting. As Alexa herself contends, smart speakers are not sending every utterance into the tech giants’ digital vaults. Despite their name, the devices are simple-minded. They listen out for wake words, and then send what follows to the cloud as an audio clip; when an answer arrives, in the form of another audio clip, they play it back. Putting all the smarts in the cloud means these speakers can be very cheap and acquire new skills as their cloud-based brains are continually upgraded. As part of this improvement, manufacturers (such as Amazon) store sound clips of queries, so they can be assessed by humans if necessary. But Amazon notes that users can delete these clips at any time. There’s always the mute button if you are worried about accidentally triggering your speaker and sending a clip into the cloud during a sensitive conversation. Users, the firm insists, are in control.
所以，我们先来澄清一些事实。如Alexa所称，智能语音助手不会把它们听到的每一句话都传到技术巨头的数字库。尽管被称为智能语音助手，实际上这些设备都是头脑单一的。她们留心听取唤醒词，然后把接下来听到的内容以音频片段发送至云端；找到答案之后，又以语音片段的形式返回并将其播放出来。把所有的智能处理放在云端操作，意味着这些语音助手能够保持低廉的成本，同时随着云端大脑的频繁升级又能获得更强更好的交互性。为改进产品体验，智能语音助手制造商（比如亚马逊）储存了用户询问的声音片段，必要时交由人工客服判断。同时，亚马逊也指出，用户可以随时删除这些片段。如果你在和他人进行一场私密的谈话，担心不小心触发智能语音助手，使其将谈话内容发送至云端，使用静音键即可。亚马逊坚称，用户对设备使用拥有绝对的掌控权。
Not everyone is convinced by such assurances, however. What if hackers infiltrate the devices? Could governments require manufacturers to provide back doors? Are their makers using them to snoop on people and then exploiting that information to target online ads or offer them particular products? Some people refuse to let Alexa and Siri into the house.
但是这样的承诺不能让所有人信服。万一这些设备被黑客入侵了呢？政府会不会要求生产商敞开后门呢？生产商会不会用这些设备探取用户的信息并利用这些信息，去投放相应的网络广告或者给用户推送特定的产品信息从而获利呢？因此，一些人拒绝在家使用Alexa以及Siri。
Note
7. infiltrate v. to secretly become part of a group in order to get information or to influence the way that group thinks or behaves
eg: A journalist managed to infiltrate the powerful drug cartel.
If eavesdropping is your problem, eschewing smart speakers does not solve it. Smartphones, which people blithely carry around with them, are even worse. Spy agencies are said to be able to activate the microphone in such devices, which have even more sensors than smart speakers, including location-tracking GPS chips and accelerometers that can reveal when and how the phone is moving. And smartphones are, if anything, even more intimate than smart speakers. Few of Alexa’s users, after all, take her into bed with them.
如果你怕被偷听，避免使用智能语音助手并不能解决这个问题。实际上，人们放心携带的智能手机对隐私侵犯更甚。据称，情报间谍有办法开启他人智能手机的麦克风。比起智能语音助手，智能手机装载了更多的感应器，比如用于定位跟踪的GPS芯片和用于记录手机移动相关的时间、方位信息的加速传感器。一定要说有什么区别的话，只能说智能手机比起智能语音助手更为私密。毕竟没有多少Alexa的用户会把她带至枕间入眠。
Notes
8. eschew v. to avoid something intentionally, or to give something up
eg: We won't have discussions with this group unless they eschew violence.
9. blithe adj. happy and without worry
eg: She shows a blithe disregard for danger.
At the same time as devices are getting cleverer (Amazon makes a microwave oven with built-in voice assistant), the big tech firms are expanding into adjacent areas such as shopping services, finance and entertainment. Over time this may mean their incentives to snoop and misuse data rise. But there will also be a countervailing incentive for manufacturers to differentiate themselves by making more privacy-friendly devices that promise not to store voice commands, or process more on the device rather than in the cloud (though this will be more expensive). The chief thing is that consumers should be able to choose how to balance convenience and privacy. If this magical technology is to reach its full potential, the tech giants need to do more to convince users that Alexa and her friends can be trusted.
同时，随着各种设备变得越来越智能（亚马逊推出了一款内置有语音助手的微波炉），科技巨头正在扩展至周边领域，比如购物、金融以及娱乐服务。这可能也意味着，久而久之，他们在利益的驱使下，探取和盗用用户数据的动机可能会增强。但是同时也将出现与之抗衡的发展模式。为了实现差异化发展，生产商会制造出更注重用户隐私的智能语音设备，这些产品不存储用户语音，或者更多地借助设备而非云端上处理信息（尽管成本会更高）。最重要的是，消费者能够选择如何在产品便利性和私密性作出平衡。要充分实现智能语音设备的潜能，科技巨头公司还需要做出更多努力，才能让用户信赖智能语音设备。
Notes
10. Countervailing: adj. having equal force but an opposite effect
eg: There was nobody strong enough to lead an effective countervailing force against the dictator.
校对：Sunny Li/ Aether
第一部分（1-2段）人们对智能语音设备是否会侵犯隐私存疑
第二部分（3段）通过阐明智能语音设备的工作原理，生厂商向用户证明消费者拥有对智能设备的控制权
第三部分（4-5段）智能设备收集用户信息的其他途径，存在侵犯用户隐私的其他隐患
第四部分（6段）要让用户信赖，智能设备的发展任重道远