Comment by LeoPanthera
17 hours ago
Apple Watches have had an audio recorder app for years and no-one cares. Sometimes people are just looking for a reason to be offended.
You'd be shocked what the suite of sensors in the smartphone 99% of the population has in their pocket can do.
If I learned that someone I've been speaking to for a while was recording the conversation using the audio recorder app on their phone, I'd find that extremely creepy.
Fair enough. But people here are expressing disdain at this new feature, which is not that.
This is a new feature. It is an always on recording of conversation.
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People have plenty of conversations where if one party intentionally chose to record it, it would be big violation of trust.
This is basically just "always on" recording/transcribing that people have to intentionally remember to turn off, that's a pretty big difference.
My hope is it’s off by default and most people choose to keep it that way.
This featuring is undoubtedly to compete with, and crush, all of those stand-alone AI wearables that do the same thing. All those products failed, because people either didn’t find it that useful, or the creep factor was too high.
I could see some scenarios where it might be useful. Being at a conference, for example, and having a summary of everything I heard in the various presentations. But at the same time, it feels like the people being recorded should have knowledge of, and give consent to, the recording.
What sucks is that if you've ever pushed back on the people that use those stupid AI recorders they'll insist they're not actually recording you, its just a transcript and summary, and somehow that's fine. I'm not looking forward to more people explaining that to me, especially hardcore Apple fans.
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It's also a violation of law in some places.
https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-632/
I think they gave us enough information to understand their legal strategy. They will argue that the watch has sufficient processing power to transcribe the text in real time, and a plain text transcript is not a recording.
It likely stretches the definitions compared to what most people who do not want to be recorded think the laws should prevent, but on the other hand at least it couldn’t be used as legal evidence. It sounds intended as a memory aid, where passing a transcript for gossip purposes will hopefully be met with automatic skepticism as something that isn’t authenticated in any way and could be made up entirely.
They probably spent enormous amounts of time weighing how much legal jeopardy it would create for their customers.
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It's a 15 second loop of audio history. If you didn't record the bit a minute ago, it's gone.
A short buffer is common with wake word audio processing.
It also summarizes your full conversations.
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You missed the additional feature launch where they listen to your entire life and give you transcriptions and summaries.
“Siri Recap”
https://support.apple.com/en-us/148354
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And a crime in plenty of states. It shouldn't be, but it is.