Apple Watch’s new AI features are normalizing the idea that technology is always listening
Apple Watch’s new AI features are normalizing the idea that technology is always listening
Apple Watch 的新 AI 功能正在让“科技时刻监听”这一概念常态化
Apple is trying to get consumers to accept, and even welcome, a new reality: Your tech is always listening. At Wednesday’s “Surprise and Shine” iPhone event, where the company introduced its new hardware lineup, the real surprise turned out not to be the foldable iPhone, but how the famously privacy-sensitive tech giant has decided its watches will now be able to process live audio and transcribe what was said.
苹果公司正试图让消费者接受，甚至欢迎一种新的现实：你的科技设备正在时刻监听。在周三的“Surprise and Shine”iPhone 发布会上，苹果推出了全新的硬件阵容。真正的惊喜并非折叠屏 iPhone，而是这家以极其注重隐私著称的科技巨头决定让其手表具备处理实时音频并转录对话内容的能力。
Does this mean you’re always being recorded if the person you’re interacting with is wearing an Apple Watch? Not exactly — though it may make some people uncomfortable regardless. It also raises the question of whether consumers actually want this technology, or if Apple forged ahead in this area because it was afraid that another company, such as OpenAI, would soon introduce a competitive AI device of its own.
这意味着如果你与之交流的人佩戴着 Apple Watch，你就时刻处于被录音的状态吗？并不完全是——尽管这可能会让一些人感到不安。这也引发了一个问题：消费者是否真的需要这项技术？还是说苹果之所以在这一领域奋起直追，是因为担心 OpenAI 等其他公司会很快推出具有竞争力的 AI 设备？
Today, a number of startups are acting on the belief that AI-powered transcription is a key consumer use case for AI. So far, this more often involves transcribing meeting notes or recording lectures or interviews. Some companies, like the AI pendant Friend and Amazon’s Bee, ventured into other areas, too, with always-available AI companions that can help you remember your day by passively taking notes. Apple decided to go a slightly different route. With its new watches’ “audio intelligence,” “Live Rewind,” and “Siri Recap” features, the company is straddling the line between accessibility and utility on one side, and what starts to feel like invasive technology on the other.
如今，许多初创公司都认为 AI 转录是 AI 的一个关键消费级应用场景。到目前为止，这更多涉及转录会议纪要或录制讲座与采访。一些公司，如 AI 挂件 Friend 和亚马逊的 Bee，也涉足了其他领域，推出了随时待命的 AI 伴侣，通过被动记录笔记来帮助你回忆一天的生活。苹果决定走一条略有不同的路线。凭借新手表上的“音频智能”、“实时回放”（Live Rewind）和“Siri 摘要”（Siri Recap）功能，苹果公司正游走在无障碍与实用性，以及开始让人感到具有侵入性的技术之间。
On its own, Audio Intelligence seems to be a useful feature for the deaf or hard of hearing, as it can alert Apple Watch owners to sounds like sirens, alarms, doorbells, babies crying, and more, using on-device AI. This can work even when the wearer’s iPhone is not with them and, in some cases, could provide life-saving assistance, such as when a fire alarm or carbon monoxide detector goes off. It’s doubtful anyone would take issue with this type of audio AI.
就其本身而言，“音频智能”对于听障人士来说似乎是一项有用的功能，因为它能利用设备端 AI 提醒 Apple Watch 用户注意警报声、闹钟、门铃、婴儿啼哭等声音。即使佩戴者不在 iPhone 身边，该功能也能正常工作，在某些情况下甚至能提供救命的帮助，例如火灾警报或一氧化碳探测器响起时。几乎没有人会反对这种类型的音频 AI。
However, Live Rewind and Siri Recap move out of the assistive tech space and into a murkier area. While Apple’s data protections may make these features more palatable to some, there’s still the possibility that normalizing listening technology may not be the best move for a privacy-conscious company. This is especially true given the broader consumer backlash against surveillance technology like Flock cameras, AI data centers, and AI apps in general.
然而，“实时回放”和“Siri 摘要”已经超出了辅助技术的范畴，进入了一个更模糊的领域。虽然苹果的数据保护措施可能让这些功能更容易被部分人接受，但对于一家注重隐私的公司来说，将监听技术常态化可能并非明智之举。考虑到消费者对 Flock 摄像头、AI 数据中心以及各类 AI 应用等监控技术的广泛抵制，这一点尤为突出。
For starters, the Live Rewind AI feature lets you go back in time 15 seconds and transcribe what was just said by double-pressing the watch’s digital crown. This transcription can then be saved to Apple’s new standalone Siri app so you can revisit the information later.
首先，“实时回放”AI 功能允许你通过双击手表的数字表冠，回溯过去 15 秒并转录刚才所说的内容。这些转录内容随后可以保存到苹果新的独立 Siri 应用中，以便你日后查阅。
Apple suggests that this could be used to remember things like a “book recommendation, a colleague’s brilliant idea, or something you didn’t hear the first time,” but it also means that you can essentially catch anyone saying something they didn’t necessarily mean to have recorded and make a note of it. This has implications around consent, not only from an ethical standpoint but from a legal one as well.
苹果建议这可以用于记录“书籍推荐、同事的绝妙点子，或者你第一次没听清的内容”，但这同时也意味着，你本质上可以捕捉到任何人无意被录音的言论并将其记录下来。这不仅在道德层面，在法律层面也涉及到了“同意”的问题。
AI device-maker Plaud, for instance, advises customers to obtain legally required consent before recording. Amazon’s Bee‘s terms of service remind users that they’re solely responsible for complying with the law around minors’ data privacy, not Amazon. Since Apple isn’t saving audio, it’s unclear how the court system might handle these new, text-only transcripts. It’s possible the notes could be introduced as evidence in court, but their lack of audio could make them harder to authenticate or verify. Plus, the evidentiary rules around their use will also likely vary by state.
例如，AI 设备制造商 Plaud 建议客户在录音前获得法律要求的同意。亚马逊 Bee 的服务条款提醒用户，他们需自行负责遵守有关未成年人数据隐私的法律，而非亚马逊。由于苹果并不保存音频，目前尚不清楚法院系统将如何处理这些新的纯文本转录内容。这些笔记有可能被作为法庭证据，但由于缺乏原始音频，它们可能更难被鉴定或核实。此外，关于其使用的证据规则也可能因州而异。
Beyond the legal issues, the idea that someone can always record from their watch has cultural implications. Already, recording devices have impacted the way people behave in real life, studies have shown, as has social media and data surveillance culture. Knowing you could be recorded at any time has a dampening effect on how you interact with others and engage in self-expression.
除了法律问题外，一个人可以随时通过手表进行录音这一概念还具有文化影响。研究表明，录音设备已经影响了人们在现实生活中的行为方式，社交媒体和数据监控文化亦是如此。知道自己随时可能被录音，会对你与他人的互动以及自我表达产生抑制作用。
However, recording a photo or video still requires a fairly obvious move on the recorder’s part: you have to hold up your phone and face it toward the action. Snapping up a bit of audio to turn into a transcript just by pressing the watch’s digital crown is arguably a much subtler gesture, even though it comes with an audible chime and full-screen animation of a microphone, as Apple says.
然而，拍摄照片或视频通常需要录制者做出相当明显的动作：你必须举起手机并对准拍摄对象。而仅仅通过按压手表的数字表冠就捕捉一段音频并将其转录，可以说是一个隐蔽得多的动作，尽管正如苹果所言，该操作会伴随声音提示和全屏麦克风动画。
Another new Apple Watch feature, “Siri Recap,” uses ambient listening to “take high-level notes” of your conversations, which can be reviewed in the Siri iOS app. These notes will automatically generate a title, summary, and key points based on what was recorded and summarized by AI. They will not be exact transcripts. Apple suggests this could make sense for recording meeting takeaways or key info from a parent-teacher conference, for instance.
另一项新的 Apple Watch 功能“Siri 摘要”利用环境监听来为你的对话“记录要点”，这些内容可以在 iOS 的 Siri 应用中查看。这些笔记会根据 AI 录制和总结的内容自动生成标题、摘要和关键点。它们不会是逐字转录。苹果建议，这对于记录会议要点或家长会上的关键信息等场景非常实用。
The company also tried to assure users that it has approached these listening features with respect for user privacy. Apple notes that Siri Recap doesn’t default to always being on like some other AI wearables are. Instead, you can choose when it’s enabled, like only at work or only during the day. Plus, you can turn the feature off and on at any time from Control Center.
苹果公司也试图向用户保证，其在开发这些监听功能时充分尊重了用户隐私。苹果指出，与某些其他 AI 可穿戴设备不同，Siri 摘要功能不会默认开启。相反，你可以选择开启的时间，例如仅在工作时或仅在白天。此外，你可以随时通过控制中心开启或关闭该功能。
Notably, Apple points out that it does not create or store audio recordings, and that the raw audio isn’t accessible, even to Apple. It also doesn’t identify or attribute the speakers, and it protects the generated transcripts and recaps with end-to-end encryption. Whether that’s enough for consumers not to feel like the feature is creepy is another matter. Either Apple has found the right balance between utility and privacy, or it’s about to see some consumer backlash.
值得注意的是，苹果强调它不会创建或存储音频录音，原始音频即使对苹果公司本身也是不可访问的。它也不会识别或标记说话者，并使用端到端加密来保护生成的转录和摘要。这是否足以让消费者不觉得该功能令人毛骨悚然，则是另一回事了。要么是苹果在实用性和隐私之间找到了完美的平衡，要么就是它即将面临消费者的抵制。