https://youtu.be/Pe2ugye7Ya4?si=qhGPselIm7sZkXyP&t=558 (

My father has hearing aids and in some environments, it doesn't work well (directional vs omnidirectional ... but directional requires the person to directly address him while omnidirectional tends to pick up too much background clutter). In doctors offices (for example) he has handed his phone in dictation mode to the receptionist and asked them to speak to it and then he reads the transcription and responds... and this repeats. In a restaurant environment, sometimes another person orders for him.

This sort of thing could be useful in such cases.

As someone whose hearing has been degrading fast, this sounds like a feature that would be immensely useful. At some point you get tired of asking everyone to repeat themselves and start guessing by context (you've probably seen an old family member do this).

That's how you know no one in charge has a real life, they're all so disconnected from the reality of the bottom 90% that they think this is how we live.

Same with the "airpod live translation" thing, they probably spent more time implementing/testing it than the feature has been used in real life

And even if it weren't super weird and creepy, it's 15 seconds, right? So what, that waitress rolledup, read the menu for less than 10 seconds, and then zoomed away, giving you a couple of seconds to get to and run the replay?

I kept thinking they were revealing glasses the way they gave a feature list before describing the item in question.

oh man, you have not been keeping up with the anti-social joneses.

Interactiving with people is so pre-covid!

It feels like a made for TV ad for accessibility.

What is a normal person?

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.

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.

It really depends on what you consider a recording. If audio is streamed though a transcription engine and never saved in a way that could be replayed, it's hard to argue that a recording has been made. The live audio was transcribed.

In what way does this violate the privacy of anyone around them? It doesn't even store audio recordings, which is something every smartphone has been able to do for 20 years.

Tell us everything, what happens on tour stays on tour - sure. Just approve that your data is - of course - anonymously used to train AI and regarding intelligence agencies or AI Acts: well, it is not us, it is them. Law is law, you know. We won't tell you anyway.

There is no privacy left. And to be honest, people worshipping their phones all day but complaining about privacy is the biggest WTF I have. This doesn't match.

Also I am a Mathematician and know statistics very well. The person, who is not on Facebook, but on WhatsApp, who works at X and lives in Y - we got you my friend.

You moved away? No problem! Someone photographed you casually, you weren't even the main character, we ignored you, and send it in a group chat you know nothing about. Well, we know all the others and can relate to anyway. And then? Well AI can very well predict you aging - easy. We have you already. Sleep well and dream of being unknown. Because... How do you know what you don't know?

I gave up on privacy because there is none anymore. Selling and publication of your data is a whole different story. And that's what Apple means by circumventing the rest.

It maintains everyone’s privacy.

Just because your voice was recorded doesn’t necessarily mean it can be played back and/or “stolen”.

Your soul won’t be sucked out through Apple Watches.

There's a difference between "weird people could choose to do this creepy thing and violate my trust" and "not weird people could forget to turn off this slightly less creepy thing and still violate my trust" Both of these suck, but honestly I don't appreciate that Apple is making me feel uneasy talking around my friends with Apple Watches. Not because I don't trust my friends, but because now it takes extra work for them to not do something kinda creepy.

Friction makes all the difference. Google used to sweat over 100ms in page loading.

Running a voice memory all day long is one thing. Pressing a button that automatically summarizes every conversation you'll ever have is a step change.

This is a step down the road to having an AI "presence" or entity that's always digesting sensory data, just like a human.

I think most people want to talk and have only the person they are talking to listen.

It will make me as wary as I am around people that wear those little AI notetaker/recorders, so, very. At least with those it's a single use device that you can spot, now any Apple Watch could be listening, fun!

I don't know if this will be the common reaction, but after seeing this I've made a mental note to not discuss anything private with anyone wearing an Apple Watch. Makes me suspicious of iPhones, too, after years of defending them and saying that 'technology is always listening' is a silly conspiracy

So I took issue with the automated note taking of conversations and didn't mention audio recordings. No mention of using Google or Facebook either.

I mean it's nonsense, apple can update the "secure exclave" software at any time to exfiltrate the audio if they want or get ordered to.

If you read that quote carefully you'll also notice it's only the audio that's ever mentioned as inaccessible to apple etc but never mentions anything about the actual transcript, wanna bet that goes into their little advertisement venture?