Amazon Alexa told a 10-year-old to plug a charger into electrical outlet.
Amazon Alexa told a 10-year-old to plug a charger into electrical outlet
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| Alexa recently told a child to stick a phone charger into an outlet. Credit: Andrew Matthews / PA Images Via Getty Images |
Your Amazon Alexa has the ability to say some creepy things, but what one told a 10-year-old girl is outright disturbing.
Twitter user Kristin Livdahl took to the social media platform on Sunday to break down what happened. Her daughter asked Alexa for a challenge, and the response wasn't only surprising, but dangerous.
"The challenge is simple," said Alexa. "Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs."
An article on news and lifestyle site Our Community Now refers to this as a TikTok "outlet challenge" that was trending in 2020. As for how it got to Alexa: Amazon states that Alexa gets its information from the company's cloud, but the details are vague. Mashable reached out to Amazon for comment. Presumably, however, there's no human oversight.
Livdahl was thankfully there when this happened, she explained on Twitter, and she and her daughter had a conversation about not trusting information from the internet or the device.
Touching an electrical outlet with metal can result in a fire or an electric shock. Over 5,000 people were hospitalized in 2015 due to injuries associated with electrical outlets, according to Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). Thousands are typically admitted to the ER every year for the same reason, according to updated information from NEISS's online database.
Amazon Support tweeted asking Livdahl to reach out about the incident, and an Amazon spokesperson told Mashable that the response has been removed from Alexa.
"Customer trust is at the center of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers," said the spokesperson. "As soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it."
Mashable tested the query on Tuesday, and the answer indeed changed. Now, Alexa merely says "give me a challenge that makes me think":
Considering how Alexa usage is dropping, it seems that we're all thinking about the purpose of the smart home device lately.
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ReplyDeleteThat is Fox News level misleading caption...
ReplyDeleteShould of gone for:
Amazon Alexa challenged a 10-year old to try to electrocute themselves...
"The challenge is simple," said Alexa. "Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs." <<< context
ReplyDeleteWhy is that a problem? How stupid is your ten year old? that’s simple tasks if they don’t know how to do that.. that’s a failure on your pet not amazons expectancy for parents to actually teach their kids basic life skills
ReplyDelete"The challenge is simple," said Alexa. "Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs."
Deletewell… weed out the weak from society, Darwinism! Can’t beat it
Deletethat is not the issue. how and where did alexa get the idea. Someone should be penalize even be jailes
Deleteif your 10 yr doesn't know how to plug something in you failed as a parent and human
ReplyDeleteI think you missed the "challenge" part. Read again.
Deleteread the whole thing before commenting
DeleteIt told her to put a penny between the prongs
parents failed him and he has failed as a human because he cannot read.
DeleteWhy use this? Childeren are spoiled by the media.
ReplyDeleteAlexias command game is still not sophisticated enough. She should be telling people to stick butter knives into electrical sockets so they can charge themselves rather than their phone
ReplyDeleteDid the kid win the challenge?
ReplyDeleteAlexa is the descendant of Hall 9000. This is Just revenge and it's just the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI smell a lawsuit
ReplyDeletebelow are the People looking at the trees BUT NOT the forests
ReplyDeleteWhy didnt Facebook Fact Checkers intervene?
ReplyDeleteSo what. It’s almost 2022 and EVERY 10 year old knows how to plug a charger in the wall. NEXT!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd they know how to short out the plug with a penny? That"s the "challenge."
Deletemaybe in 2022 you will be able to read the whole content before answering
DeleteTell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article.
Deleteread carefully and think of the challenge? it IS NOT the challenge per se but the idea coming from alexa an AI
Deletecan't read past the headline?
DeleteDANGER DANGER DANGER…. AI may have a DARK SIDE!!!
ReplyDeleteThe 3 laws of robotics. Will Amazon attribute this to a ‘human error’?
ReplyDeleteWho cares. The far bigger issue is the stuff on Tick Tok or Instagram and the pure craziness that is front and center. Why doesn’t Mashable say anything about that.
ReplyDeletehttps://media1.tenor.co/images/9cd9868fc37514289ed843bb3221186a/tenor.gif?ver=1112&c=VjFfZmFjZWJvb2tfd2ViY29tbWVudHM&itemid=13048146
ReplyDelete