Smart-Mute Assistant Audio Transmission for Private Speech
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing smart assistant systems face challenges in effectively muting audio transmission on third-party client systems and accurately determining the user's intent to speak privately, especially in multi-user/multi-channel audio communication scenarios, leading to potential privacy issues and user inconvenience.
Innovation Solution
The proposed solution involves sending instructions to client systems to provide blank audio data for user speech inputs during private conversations, using contextual information to determine the user's intent to speak privately, and implementing smart-mute functionality to protect user privacy without explicit user intervention.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the assistant system continuously monitors audio to determine user intent, then privacy protection capability is improved, but system complexity and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary analysis by detecting wake words or activation phrases before initiating full audio monitoring. This preliminary action filters out non-relevant audio segments, reducing processing overhead while maintaining privacy protection capability when actually needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses feedback from audio analysis results to dynamically adjust monitoring intensity. When private conversation detection is confirmed, the system intensifies monitoring to ensure privacy protection; when no private conversation is detected, monitoring is reduced to minimize complexity.
2Reliability
If the system implements smart-mute functionality to protect user privacy, then user privacy is improved, but ease of operation deteriorates due to automated control
Solution Approach 1:
The smart-mute functionality operates autonomously by detecting user intent through audio analysis and automatically muting the audio stream. The system serves itself by making privacy protection decisions without requiring explicit user commands, thus maintaining privacy while simplifying user interaction.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary detection layer that analyzes audio content to determine user intent before executing mute actions. This intermediary mechanism bridges the gap between user privacy needs and automated control, ensuring privacy protection while maintaining ease of operation through intelligent mediation.
3Reliability
If blank audio data is sent to replace user speech, then privacy protection is improved, but loss of information increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the necessary audio segments that require privacy protection and replaces only those specific segments with blank data. Non-sensitive portions of the audio stream remain unchanged, thus protecting privacy while minimizing information loss in the overall audio transmission.
Solution Approach 2:
The privacy protection mechanism applies different quality treatments to different portions of the audio stream. Sensitive segments are muted with blank data while non-sensitive segments maintain their original quality, creating local quality variation that balances privacy protection with information preservation.
Data Source
AI summary
In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a first portion of a speech input from a first user from a first client system associated with the first user during a first turn of a dialog session, wherein the first user is in a multi-channel audio communication with one or more second users, determining an intent of the first user to speak to an assistant system privately based on contextual information associated with the first portion of the speech input during the first turn of the dialog session, and sending, to the first client system responsive to determining the intent of the first user to speak to the assistant system privately and during the dialog session, instructions for muting audio transmission of subsequent second portions of the speech input from the first user during the dialog session to one or more of the second users in the multi-channel audio communication.