Wiley Hodges, writing (on Substack, alas) about Apple’s new, always-listening “Audio Intelligence” features available on Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4:

Audio Intelligence appears to me to be the first case of a always-on feature with some of the qualities of surveillance we’ve seen in other products—an enduring record, an uncertainty on the part of others in the room about what’s happening—that also takes care to minimize the privacy harms that seem to be essentially intrinsic to such products. By doing their homework and showing us the receipts, Apple has taken fears of audio recording or even detailed after-the-fact transcripts off the table. But what they’ve left there is a set of questions about social and even legal norms and expectations. They’ve also created a potential problem for Apple Watch users in the form of a newfound suspicion that every word is being recorded unseen. It isn’t true, but it’s difficult to shrink the whole of Apple’s extensive privacy protections surrounding these features into a pithy soundbite.

Hodges is a former Apple Product Manager, so he understands Apple marketing and motivations better than most. He acknowledges the many ways Apple is feverishly working to avoid its own “Glasshole” moment. It’s clear the product marketing and privacy teams have put a lot of thought into avoiding even a whiff of impropriety. But, to quote Nick Heer, “good luck explaining that to anyone around you after you read back an exact transcript of what they just said.”