Big Brother is listening...

[CharlesHarris]

[BeardyMan]

I wouldn't say that it's obvious that every word spoken when you are in the same room is recorded and transcribed into text which is shared with their partners.

It's certainly not 'needed' to make the TV work, it's like using a remote control, it reacts to the button pressed (or your voice), it doesn't need to store and record which buttons were pressed and then send them back to Samsung for them to do whatever with...

That's how they work. The processing from speech to commands for the TV is done off-site by a third party company, NOT by the TV itself. Which is why the TVs now require internet connection.

Is it stored? Who knows. Probably...

Fortunately I don't have such technology, but you can be guaranteed that it'll be in any future ones that are purchased.

Any android phone that has the "O.K. Google" feature turned on does exactly the same, although the phone processes the "OK GOOGLE" command, then sends everything else off for processing (to google) But for this to work, that microphone is always listening. ALWAYS.