Mobile

Apple stops human grading of Siri recording globally; Apple to release application for opt-out

Apple announces to stop the human grading of Siri application response recording globally. Company will release a software in near future which will allow the users to participate if they which in the manual grading process.  Last week a story posted by Guardian on its news portal raised concerns among the users of Siri application.

According to the last week Guardian story, Apple hired contractors were listing and grading the audio response recorded by Apple Siri and Smart speakers. Apple used this process to manually verify the Siri response to validate the accuracy of the application. According to Apple this process of manual verification helped them to enhance the quality of application.

Apple hired contactors around the world for listening and manually grading the response of Siri application. Here audio clip without any contact or identification details were sent for manual grading, where contractors have to listen the audio and grade it on various parameters.

“We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy,” Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch. “While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading.”

According to the contractor claim the audio snippets could contain personal information, audio of people having sex, financial information and other private information.  This was a big privacy concerns for many people. Now Apple stopped the manual verification process worldwide.

For general mobile users it is little disconcerting as their daily chit chat is being listen by real-life humans if the device with Siri is within listening distance. Almost all the people keep their phones very near to their body all the time and even during the sleep they keep their phone near the bed. It seems huge privacy concern for the users of smartphone.

Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant applications also follow the similar review process the accuracy of the application. According to the Apple its hired contactors have to grade the clips by listening few seconds long audio clip and this process is necessary to increase Siri accuracy.

Other companies like Amazon and Google also use human review to improve their accuracy of their application, but they have option for the users to opt out from this process.

Apple released Siri but currently they don’t have option for the user to opt out from the manual review process. After stopping the manual review process, Apple will release software with the option for user to opt out from the manual review process.

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Sangita Roy
Sangita Roy is technical editor with 9 years of experience in reporting, editing and packaging new reports. Her interest is technical writing, editing, reporting and writing columns for many media house.
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Email: sangita@firsttechnews.com
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