zlacker

>>rbanff+(OP)
I put an Echo Dot in my son’s room a couple months after he was born to play music/white noise for him to fall asleep easier and to make the mornings easier when getting him ready (so that, for instance, I can use it to ascertain news/weather/daily travel info). Over the past year and a half since I put it in his room, he has of course been developing rapidly in his cognitive abilities, and he’s finally at the point now where he can wake the device on his own. It’s been several months of trying to talk to it, mostly by mimicking the simpler commands that he hears me say.

It’s interesting to me that he has grown up speaking at the Echo and slowly learning how to communicate with it in much the same way that he is learning to communicate with other people. His communicative learning progress is definitely a lot slower with the Echo than with me, but that makes sense since he spends a lot more time with people than with the Echo. Even still, I was very impressed the other day when he woke the Echo (and then promptly told it to “stop”, which has been in his vocabulary for a while now).

I’m not sure there’s any real point to this outside of just an interesting (to me) anecdote. And I guess it’s probably time I take the Echo out of his room, or at least figure out how to lock it down, so he doesn’t get into anything age-inappropriate or buy 500 cans of tomato sauce or something.

Anybody else have any interesting experiences with their little ones learning to communicate with smart devices?

>>cmpb+u44
I think your tale begs the question: How will your son's (or any other child's for that matter) notion of personal privacy be shaped by the use of technology from a very early age? I think we'll have to wait and see, as this will be highly interesting.

>>plainO+h84
I don't think this is a new development, privacy in voice assistants is the equivalent of your browser's search history. If anything, that made me more conscious of privacy than anything else.

Our kids know I can see anything they ask. As well as any time spent on devices. I don't see this as very different from my upbringing. And I haven't noticed any regression in trust.

>>feocco+oE4
That's not the same at all.

It is (was?) easy to control your browser's history. It is impossible to control what these devices send to google/amazon.

Your browser's search history only gets populated when you, well, search. These devices are collecting information 24/7, regardless if you are actively engaged with them.

>>crafty+VU4
I don't think your last statement is accurate. While the device is "listening" for the trigger words, it's not storing information. It only collects information you call upon it for. You do need to actively engage. I have not seen evidence of otherwise.