Google’s AI model will potentially listen in on all your phone calls — or at least ones it suspects are coming from a fraudster.

To protect the user’s privacy, the company says Gemini Nano operates locally, without connecting to the internet. “This protection all happens on-device, so your conversation stays private to you. We’ll share more about this opt-in feature later this year,” the company says.

“This is incredibly dangerous,” says Meredith Whittaker, the president of a foundation for the end-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal.

Whittaker —a former Google employee— argues that the entire premise of the anti-scam call feature poses a potential threat. That’s because Google could potentially program the same technology to scan for other keywords, like asking for access to abortion services.

“It lays the path for centralized, device-level client-side scanning,” she said in a post on Twitter/X. “From detecting ‘scams’ it’s a short step to ‘detecting patterns commonly associated w/ seeking reproductive care’ or ‘commonly associated w/ providing LGBTQ resources’ or ‘commonly associated with tech worker whistleblowing.’”

  • fruitycoder
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    8 months ago

    As a OpenSource app with no need for centralized server it would be great. I want that. As spyware configured out of my control absolutely not.

    • GenosseFlosse@lemmy.nz
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      8 months ago

      I think you do need some central server, and then check if a lot of users report certain number blocks for spam in a short amount of time. No need for AI on this one. Isn’t that how most phone spam blockers work?

      • fruitycoder
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        8 months ago

        I have that now, its OK. But spammers cycle through numbers so quick that good amount get through

      • sherlockholmez@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        That is how it already works. I don’t think most people have as much of a problem with that as complete client side screening.