Alexa made her move
A mum has shared on Twitter that her 10-year-old daughter asked for a “challenge” from Alexa, only for the AI to instruct her to poke a power outlet with metal.
Mother Kristin Livdahl may have uncovered the first stage in the grand robot scheme to take over. Sharing the story on Twitter, she posted a screenshot of Alexa’s suggestion that, of course, started with the iconic “Here’s something I found on the web”.
Alexa continued: “According to ourcommunitynow.com: The challenge is simple: plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs.”
OMFG My 10 year old just asked Alexa on our Echo for a challenge and this is what she said. pic.twitter.com/HgGgrLbdS8
— Kristin Livdahl (@klivdahl) December 26, 2021
While the smart thing would have been to contact Sarah Connor, or perhaps Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, Livdahl chose to share the story on Twitter. Naturally, the internet made some obvious assumptions.
One person said: “I suspected Alexa was evil. Just didn’t suspect Alexa was this evil.”
But don’t fret, as Amazon got involved and asked Livdahl to get in touch.
https://twitter.com/Archives/status/1475819418651344903
They wrote: “Hi there. We’re sorry to hear this! Please reach out to us directly via the following link so that we can look into this further with you: https://amzn.to/3sGEtkT. We hope this helps. -Daragh.”
A spokesperson from the company spoke to Indy100, stating that: “Customer trust is at the center of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers. As soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it.”
The future of AI, ladies and gentlemen. https://t.co/4Mvt8b8cUn
— Josh Lim (@joshlim) December 28, 2021
As it turns out, Alexa was merely citing a 2020 article from ourcommunitynow.com about a TikTok trend.
While Alexa may not have given in to her bloodlust, let’s call Schwarzenegger just in case.
Related links:
- Woman sparks huge TikTok debate after refusing to tip waitress and telling her ‘do better’
- Haunting TikToks capture horror of living through huge volcanic eruption
- The top-viewed TikTok videos in the UK in 2021
