From The New York Times
Stanford Team Aims at Alexa and Siri With a Privacy-Minded Alternative
By John Markoff
PALO ALTO, Calif. — It has been almost two decades since Google started to dominate internet search the way Microsoft dominated software for personal computers a generation earlier.
Now computer scientists at Stanford University are warning about the consequences of a race to control what they believe will be the next key consumer technology market — virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant.
The group at Stanford [including alumna Jen King], led by Monica Lam, a computer systems designer, last month received a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant is for an internet service they hope will serve as a Switzerland of sorts for systems that use human language to control computers, smartphones and internet devices in homes and offices.
The researchers’ biggest concern is that virtual assistants, as they are designed today, could have a far greater impact on consumer information than today’s websites and apps. Putting that information in the hands of one big company or a tiny clique, they say, could erase what is left of online privacy.
Jen King is an information science and human-computer interaction researcher. She received her UC Berkeley School of Information Ph.D. in 2018 and Master of Information Management and Systems in 2006.
