Amazon’s Alexa asks girls to play with the socket

“Smart” assistant Alexa recommended a ten-year-old girl to short the socket with a coin. Amazon is talking about a “bug” that has already been fixed.

So-called smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa should help in everyday life by providing answers to questions asked by voice. But if a ten-year-old girl from the United States followed Alexa’s instructions, it could be fatal.

The girl asked Alexa for a “challenge,” a little challenge to pass the time. Alexa then suggested inserting a plug halfway into an outlet and then touching the two pins with a cent. This action can result in severe electric shock, especially with US American plugs, which are much less insulated than three-pole Swiss plugs.

The mother prevents what is worse

Fortunately, Kristen Livdahl, the girl’s mother, was in the same room when Alexa made the hara-kiri proposal. But her daughter is also smart enough not to do such a stupid thing, according to Vidal. She posted a photo of the evidence on Twitter, which also shows how Alexa’s train of ideas went.

It is assumed that Alexa did not intentionally try to kill the little girl in a “Terminator” manner. Instead, the supposed smart assistant mistook an entry on any website on the topic of “challenge”. to the BBC Amazon said that as soon as it learned of the “error,” it was fixed.

AI still has a long way to go

The “Penny Challenge” originated in the early 2020s when it went viral on TikTok, YouTube, and other social networks. Until then, experts have warned of the obvious risks involved in participating in this “challenge”.

However, the incident also shows that AI-based applications still have a long way to go. Most of the time, it’s annoying or funny at best when digital assistants like Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant give the wrong answers.

Sometimes the answers are life-threatening.