Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa asks a 10-year-old girl to get an electric shock. Your mother is horrified.
Kassel – Alexa has become an integral part of many households. The Amazon * voice assistant answers questions, plays music and can make many other tasks easier. But use can also be dangerous, as an incident in the USA shows.
Apparently Alexa asked a 10-year-old girl there to electrify a coin at a socket. The girl asked Alexa for a “challenge”. “Put a cell phone charger about halfway into a socket and then hold a penny to the exposed contacts,” Alexa is said to have suggested to the girl.
Amazon voice assistant asks child to get electrocuted
Her mother Kristin Livdahl describes the incident on Twitter. Accordingly, Livdahl did gymnastics (physical challenges) with her daughter because the weather was bad. “She just wanted another,” writes Livdahl. Her daughter Alexa then asked for a new challenge.
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
The voice assistant found the challenge that Alexa posed to the girl on the Internet. The so-called “Penny Challenge” began circulating on TikTok and other social media websites about a year ago, reports the BBC. The idea behind the “Challenge” is to get yourself electrocuted and thus to cheer others up. But the effects can be far worse. “I know you can lose fingers, hands and arms,” said Michael Clusker, station manager for the Carlisle East Fire Station, to The Press in Yorkshire in 2020.
Alexa poses a dangerous “challenge” to the child – Amazon reacts
“I was there and yelled,” No, Alexa, no! As if it were a dog, ”continues Livdahl. However, her daughter did not consider following the instructions. She told Livdahl that she was too smart to do that anyway.
Amazon responded under Livdahl’s Twitter post by stating: “We’re sorry to hear that”. According to a request from the BBC, Amazon has responded to the problem. “As soon as we heard about this bug, we acted quickly to fix it,” Amazon told the BBC. Alexa should therefore no longer recommend the “Penny Challenge”.
A less dangerous mistake happened to Amazon in November *. A family complained about a Playmobil delivery via Twitter. The online retailer was contrite. (Sarah Neumeyer) * hna.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
