(WHAS 11) – Amazon has a team of thousands of people around the world who listen to voice recordings from the company’s smart speakers to try and improve how Alexa responds to commands, Bloomberg reported. The report said the team transcribes and annotates recordings that have been captured from Echo speakers after the wake word is detected from the customer’s device. Users can tell when a wake word is
detected because the light ring at the top of the Echo turns blue “By default, Echo devices are designed to detect only your chosen wake word (Alexa, Amazon, Computer or Echo),” an Amazon spokesperson said. The device detects the wake word by identifying acoustic patterns that match the wake word. No audio is stored or sent to the cloud unless the device detects the wake word (or Alexa is activated by pressing a button.” Two people who worked on the program told Bloomberg that employees sometimes review up to 1,000 audio clips during a nine-hour shift. READ MORE