this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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More than half of Americans reported receiving at least one scam call per day in 2024. To combat the rise of sophisticated conversational scams that deceive victims over the course of a phone call, we introduced Scam Detection late last year to U.S.-based English-speaking Phone by Google public beta users on Pixel phones.

We use AI models processed on-device to analyze conversations in real-time and warn users of potential scams. If a caller, for example, tries to get you to provide payment via gift cards to complete a delivery, Scam Detection will alert you through audio and haptic notifications and display a warning on your phone that the call may be a scam.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Great, more AI bloat from Google that is now listening in on my calls? How do I disable?

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (6 children)

Part of the reason I haven't yet moved away from Google services on my pixel is because of the call screening and anti-spam features. I screen unknown callers pretty much all the time so Google is listening if they call me anyway. I'm fine with that, knowing A. That the callers get a heads up that they're talking to an AI and being recorded and B. That the ones who are human and trying to scam me generally don't call back once they know the line is being actively recorded.

There's no feature parity for this on any of the roms I would move to. Taking it a step further is unnecessary for me, and I'll probably opt out. But I can fully understand why someone might want it (for their elderly family members for instance).

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

Kinda cool, on device and hopefully doesn't call back to Google then I'm fine with it

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

I have graphing OS. I still get a ton of spam phone calls a day.

I'm apparently not enough of a software developer to figure out how to use SpamBlocker app. Anybody have any suggestions?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

when i had a pixel5a, i would get multiple scam calls a day without fail, and almost always at the exact same time. with my new non-pixel, non-samsung and non-iphone i dont get as many as before, google is most likely selling your data to the very same scammers. i got a OP12R instead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

I just looked up OP12R. Looks cool but comes with android. Are you using a different OS?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

I had a pixel 5 for 4 years and this wasn't my personal experience.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 days ago

That really doesn't make any sense at all

[–] [email protected] -4 points 6 days ago

get a load of this: those people are allowed to vote. they cant follow a phonecall but feel entitled to make decisions about their country. cant make that up. go water plants with mountain dew!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (3 children)

We use AI models processed on-device

If it's opt-in, and the processing is done on-device, then I have no reason to be outraged.

But the skeptic in me asks "what's in it for google?".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

They get a new feature to boast about

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

This is common for companies that like to hire PhDs.

PhDs like to work on interesting and challenging projects.

With nobody to reign them in, they do all kinds of cool stuff that makes no money (e.g. Intel Optane and transactional memory).

Designing a realtime scam analysis tool with resource constraints is interesting enough to be greenlit but makes no money.

Once released, they'll move on to the next big challenge, and when nobody is there to maintain their work, it will be silently dropped by Google.

I'm willing to bet more than 70% of the Google graveyard comes from projects like these.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Like always, google is doing things for free to get training data.

All things are going into an authoritarian direction which needs control of the opposition. Google will have the infrastructure to identify people with opposing mindsets. There won't be a rebellion if the rebel leaders can be locked up in time.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Jokes on them. I don't have phone conversations

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 days ago (1 children)

and when i do, they're not in English

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Or at least not in conversational English. Me "The cheese is old and moldy." Wife "Roses eggs" Me "Bach unaccounted."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

haha very cryptic, i love that ^^

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago (2 children)

In plain English this means

Me "Have you checked for eggs recently? I just saw a bunch in the nesting boxes. Too many for one day." Wife "Yeah, it's been a while. Even Rose [the duck], who hasn't laid an egg in five years, probably laid one." Me "I haven't seen our special needs cat, the one we trapped as part of a TNR run on our own property, in the last 12 hours. Have you seen that blessed dumb beast who walks like he is drunk? If you see him now could you bring him inside?"

Any sufficiently developed culture has its own language. In this house we go out of our way to make obtuse inside joke references to keep each other on our toes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

amazing compression factor, say a novel-worth of information in a couple of words

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

One day you come home, you see all your stuff is in boxes. Then you see a note on the fridge, it says: "Womp womp" You fall to your knees and break down in tears. Through your tears you see another note underneath the fridge. You reach for the note. The note reads: "Womp, womp?" You began to laugh maniacally. You hear footsteps, you stop laughing. Your wife stands behind you. She says: "Kept you on your toes didn't I?"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Always read the fine print.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Nice, wholesale illegal wire tapping. It's OK, it's legal because it's AI and Google is totally not storing any recordings. They say this is all on-device, but that's an "oops" or equivalent from them hoovering up recordings of every phone call you use one of their ~~surveillance endpoints~~ phones on.

heavy /s

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

What do you mean, "illegal?" If the phone user consents to turning it on, that makes it legal.

I hate to defend Google, but I will absolutely defend single-party consent for recording. Don't like it? Don't fucking call me in the first place. It absolutely grinds my gears when shitty software (including from Google) plays an obnoxious warning message when I want to record a call, even though I have the right to do so without warning.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It sounds illegal because if one user opt ins for wire tapping, she / he needs to inform other people on the line about it is being wire tapped.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Read the article at all. It's on device processing nothing gets sent anywhere.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (2 children)

In many places call recording (or indeed processing of personal information which is highly likely to be present in phone calls) requires consent to be legal. I highly doubt this kind of processing is legal in the EU without both parties consenting.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (3 children)

As is stated, the call is processed locally in the user's device. If that holds true, there is no recording and no third party processing going on. Your point does not make sense.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I read that it's "opt out" not "opt in".

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago

You need to opt in to the public beta. Once it's out of beta... Who knows!

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