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@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ A world of pure touchlessness is a world in which every breath becomes an examin |
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## Wakewordlessness |
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## Wakewordlessness |
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Wakewords were never going to last. They were always a trojan horse, designed to inveigle voice assistants into our homes and machine listening into our daily existence via a fantasy of consent. Their tendency is to disappear. In the future, machine listening will be wakewordless. Much of it is already. The smart city in particular is always listening; though the distribution of this listening is heavily stratified by, for instance, [race and class](https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/gun-violence-police-shotspotter/). Urban gunshot detection systems like [Shot Spotter](https://www.shotspotter.com/), and the microphones embedded in [CCTV cameras](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/08/privacy-comissioner-grave-concerns-listening-devices-moreton-bay-council-australia) and [street lights](https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/sensors/remote-sensing/cops-smart-street-lights), never sleep. Only personal devices retain the pretense. And not for long. |
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Wakewords were never going to last. They were always a trojan horse, designed to inveigle voice assistants into our homes and machine listening into our daily existence via a fantasy of consent. Their tendency is to disappear. In the future, machine listening will be wakewordless. Much of it is already. The smart city in particular is always listening; though the distribution of this listening is heavily stratified by, for instance, [race and class](https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/gun-violence-police-shotspotter/).  like [Shot Spotter](https://www.shotspotter.com/), and the microphones embedded in [CCTV cameras](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/08/privacy-comissioner-grave-concerns-listening-devices-moreton-bay-council-australia) and [street lights](https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/sensors/remote-sensing/cops-smart-street-lights), never sleep. Only personal devices retain the pretense. And not for long. |
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In response to the pandemic, the latest OS update to Apple Watch will include a [feature](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-23/apple-wwdc-2020-ios-14-digital-key-and-hand-washing-arm-chips/12383124 "a watch that tells you when you can stop washing your hands") that uses "machine-learning models to determine motion, which appears to be hand-washing, and then use audio to confirm the sound of running water or squishing soap in your hands.” All this with a view to helping you "keep going for the amount of time recommended by global health organisations." |
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In response to the pandemic, the latest OS update to Apple Watch will include a [feature](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-23/apple-wwdc-2020-ios-14-digital-key-and-hand-washing-arm-chips/12383124 "a watch that tells you when you can stop washing your hands") that uses "machine-learning models to determine motion, which appears to be hand-washing, and then use audio to confirm the sound of running water or squishing soap in your hands.” All this with a view to helping you "keep going for the amount of time recommended by global health organisations." |
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