Contractors listened to 1,000 Siri recordings per shift before Apple suspended the practice last month

Jess Casey for The Irish Examiner:

Contractors in Cork were expected to each listen to more than 1,000 recordings from Siri every shift – before Apple suspended the practice last month, according to an employee who had their contract abruptly terminated this week.

Fixed-term workers in Cork were hired to listen to and ‘grade’ Siri recordings… Staff then transcribed and ‘graded’ these recordings based on a number of different factors. These factors included if the activation of Siri was accidental or if the query was something the voice assistant could or couldn’t assist with.

Each Siri user’s details were kept anonymous, according to the employee… Apple suspended transcription and grading work on Siri recordings last month…

MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s stance on privacy should be sacrosanct, but not to the detriment of quality. Allowing users to opt-in to help improve Siri would be a good solution.

2 Comments

  1. Of all things to raise a issue over. how does anyone expect anything to improve if wide range testing cannot be implemented without fear or someone who is completely anonymous getting their privacy shattered.. Perhaps its a simple opt in that should be asked when training Siri for the first time..

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