The Verge zeroes in on what may be the most under-regulated corner of the AI boom: bystander data. Ambient assistants are only as useful as the context they capture, so the business model practically demands overhearing people who never agreed to anything. We think the critique lands — 'user consent' has quietly become a fig leaf covering everyone else in the room. The harder question is enforcement: two-party consent laws and GDPR exist on paper, but always-on hardware ships faster than regulators move. Expect the next wave of AI wearables to come with privacy theater — LED indicators, blur modes — while the underlying data grab continues. If lawmakers ever seriously pick this fight, it would reshape the entire ambient computing category.