Apple employees listened to over 1000 recordings from Siri every day. Most of them are out of work now

Employees of the Irish company Globetech, which is a contractual partner of Apple, had the task of evaluating the interaction of the Siri voice assistant with users. During a single shift, employees listened to approximately 1,000 recordings of Siri conversations with users in Europe and the United Kingdom. But Apple terminated the contract with the aforementioned company last month.

Some of these employees shared details from their practice. It included, for example, the transcription of the recordings and their subsequent evaluation based on a number of factors. It was also assessed whether Siri was activated on purpose or by accident, and whether it provided the appropriate service to the user. One of the employees said that most of the recordings were actual commands, but there were also recordings of personal data or snippets of conversations. In all cases, however, the anonymity of the users was strictly preserved.

One of the former employees of Globetech in an interview for IrishExaminer he noted that Canadian or Australian accents also appeared on the recordings, and that the number of Irish users was rather low according to his estimates.

He drew attention to the fact that Apple uses human power to evaluate Siri recordings last month in an interview for The Guardian anonymous source from said company. He said, among other things, that the company's employees routinely listened to sensitive information regarding health or business, and that they also witnessed a number of private situations.

Although Apple has never made a secret of the fact that part of the conversations with Siri undergo "human" control, after the publication of the aforementioned report, but completely ceased operations and most of Globetech's contract employees lost their jobs. In a subsequent official statement, Apple said that everyone involved, including customers and employees, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.