His roommate didn't have the courtesy to even ask about it up front. :(

That being said, his roommate may just have not thought about it. Only way to find out is by starting the discussion and seeing how it goes.

> Why should his desire to not have voice assistants in the house trump his roommate's desire to utilize the technology they paid for and want to use?

One thing is about security and privacy (important), while the other is about convenience (trivial).

That the roommate didn't even consider the security and privacy of other people is Not Ok. It seems fairly common in this early stage of voice assistants, so having a discussion about it may resolve things.

That's a pretty ridiculous expectation to put on an end user. It's a normal phone doing normal phone things.

Listening for watch words 24/7 is not a normal phone thing.

"Normal" phone conversations are between ~two people.

This voice assistant crap is sending people's audio to - at least - Google for processing/analysis/storage/etc.

It is now.

At least from the perspective of your everyday-person.

From your perspective, this is not the case. But I wouldn't put the hacker news crowd in the "everyday-person" category.

Blame the companies, but don't put that ridiculous expectation on normal people.

Sorry, but trying to normalise this crap is just not going to work.

Not sure why you're even attempting to.

I'm just recognizing the current reality. I also agree that it's pretty crappy.