A while back on Reddit I saw a post asking about this stuff. Companies don’t need to “listen” anymore, they have much more sophisticated options now. This example will use 3 people: A (wife) B (husband) and C (wife’s old friend from school).
The question: A goes to the store without B, and runs into C, who proceeds to tell A about this cool gaming chair he just got. After the conversation, A puts the interaction aside and never mentions it to B. B later gets ads for the gaming chair. If B never had any interaction whatsoever about the chair, and A never even talked about it to B, how does B get the ads?
The answer: A goes to the store, and her phone knows this through location data. The algorithm knows A is at the store, and now picks up that C is also at the same store. The algo then finds a connection through social media that A and C know each other, and maybe even knows spending habits and sees A and C buy similar things. The odds are good that A and C will interact at the store.
C has been searching about this gaming chair for months, has just recently bought it, and talks about it constantly on socials. Odds are good that if A and C interact, C will talk about the chair.
A has no interest in gaming or tech, but B does. The algo knows A and B are married, and B would be interested in the chair C just bought. There is now a vector to send ads from the interaction of A and C directly to B, even though A never mentioned anything about the chair to B, and B has never even met C.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
This is what I’ve been saying for years. You don’t need to listen to someone’s microphone to serve eerily relevant ads. I’ve heard people commonly discussing how they talked about something and saw an ad for it later. You’re already being tracked everywhere and a bit of confirmation bias is all you need to focus in on the times it works. It’s like that story of the prenatal vitamins being recommended to that woman who didn’t realize she’s pregnant.
This isn’t to say that I don’t believe someone can’t possibly turn on the mic in a targeted attack, but few of us are having conversations that are that important. It’s way easier to target you other ways using data that’s much more available.
BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I’ve been thinking it’s the other way around. You see such and such ad X times and then the next thing you know you’re thinking about it, then mention something to someone. Then Notice the ad you’ve been seeing for a while now.
They don’t have to listen for a thought they put there in the first place.
I think history will look back at this period of wild ass mass propaganda and be like: what do you mean they used it to sell crap?
ch00f@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
It would cost like $1k for some YouTuber to buy a few burner android phones, slap prepaid sims in them, and then talk to them about their love of Hyundai and protein powder. It would blow the whole lid off whatever conspiracy were all just resigning ourselves to.
Such an easy thing to test and yet there’s zero evidence that it’s happening. At least the way people assume.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
How would it even work? You would need to transmit and process mind boggling levels of data, in almost real time according to some of these stories.
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
Local speech to text has been easy to do for at least a decade and then you’re just firing off a text file to HQ to add keywords to a user file. These days an AI will likely parse the text to find recommendable products, ten years ago you’d have just had a gigantic list of all your partners’ brand names and desired key trigger phrases in a database and run the conversation text against the database and look for matches. Super easy to accomplish. Updating someone’s ad preferences 15-30 minutes after they talk about a product may as well be considered real time.
MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
If you’re already taking about a product you’ve likely already been swayed by targeted marketing (not just online but physical/traditional too). And you only become more aware after you’ve seen an ad with it still on your mind. And this is the moment where some people say that their phone must’ve been listening to them earlier on, because they can’t seem to comprehend cohorts and marketing in general.