How your everyday activity feeds Amazon AI training models

It’s easy for Amazon services to become part of your day, whether you’re unwinding with a movie, shopping, or watching a favorite streamer on Twitch. Checking what happens to the information you leave behind often feels like a job for another day. Contributing to Amazon AI training probably isn’t why you signed up. So what information can Amazon use to train its models, who decides whether it can be used, how does that affect you, and what choices do you have if you don’t want to take part? We looked at some of Amazon’s core services and its workplaces to find out. Alexa is Amazon’s voice assistant, available through Echo speakers and other devices. You can ask it to play music, set a timer, or answer a question while you’re busy doing something else. What Alexa data can Amazon use for AI training? Amazon has faced privacy lawsuits and regulatory action over how Alexa records, stores, and uses people’s conversations. In 2023, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice alleged that Amazon retained children’s voice recordings indefinitely(new window) unless parents asked for deletion, and used that unlawfully retained data to improve Alexa’s algorithms. According to the FTC,…