So the gist of this unsuprising discovery is that Microsoft's translator 'AI' is actually supervised by contractors who listen to users voice data to correct their requests.

I'm very skeptical of these privacy claims. The fact that my voice commands are being sent to a random person on one end listening to them at home makes me reconsider the real purpose of these 'Smart Assistants' in general. If Microsoft thinks that the contractor can only access it via a 'secure portal' means that they are respecting your privacy, then the security is as a good as it being compromised and contradicts their end-to-end encryption claims.

To these companies, 'privacy' is just another buzzword used to keep us using their services. I think it would take something far worse than this to break the social inertia around these services and for us to reconsider using them.