Journalism and the Voice Intelligence Industry

Abstract

The voice intelligence industry is an emerging sector of society that involves smart speakers, car information systems, customer service calls to contact centers, and “connected-home” devices such as thermostats, home-security alarms and other tools. Linked to it are advanced machine learning and deep neural network programs that can discriminate prejudicially among individuals in ways that benefit the firms using their voice. This commentary explores the implications of these activities for journalism. For example, combining inferences about an individual’s voice with a raft other information collected about that person might lead to a rearranging of the agendas of news articles, news videos, commercial messages, and even discounts differently for different people on the fly. The rise of voice will likely reshape programmatic advertising marketplaces as well as the more private ways journalism organizations work with a variety of branding engines to identify and persuade prospects. As these pieces of the new environment move into place, it is important for people who care about the future of journalism to consider how an era centering on voice-profiling might shape news agendas individuals receive, commercial messages that come with them, and interrelationships between journalism and commerce.

Keywords:

• Internet
• marketing
• privacy
• surveillance
• bio-profiling