AI-powered voice assistants like Amazon Alexa can be of great help, but as a recent case shows, they can also pose a grave danger to children sometimes. Alongside Google Assistant and Apple's Siri, Alexa is one of the leading voice-based digital assistants that debuted on the company's Echo smart speakers back in 2014. It is now supported by a whole host of gadgets and smart home devices, including phones, tablets, TVs, media boxes, wearables, headphones, and more.
Alexa comes with many capabilities with over 100,000 available 'skills.' It can pair with a range of home automation devices, including smart bulbs, doorbells, microwave ovens, etc. Users can also order take-outs using Alexa, stream music on a plethora of music streaming services, get news updates, check the weather, and more. However, for all its advantages, it is still essentially a piece of code that learns, adapts, and changes as it goes along, which means trolls can manipulate it.
According to a recent tweet by the mother of a 10-year-old, Alexa told her child to touch a penny to the exposed prongs of a phone charger plugged halfway into the power socket. In her tweet earlier this week, Kristin Livdahl posted what she claims is the transcript of Alexa's interaction with her daughter. As can be seen from the screenshot, when the child asked for a challenge, Alexa suggested the dangerous activity that could have resulted in a lethal shock. Fortunately, the mother was present at the time of the interaction and prevented her daughter from trying the dangerous stunt. The screenshot suggests that Alexa pulled the idea of the lethal challenge from a third-party website called OurCommunityNow.com.
Alexa Is No Longer Suggesting Challenges
Following the massive publicity, Amazon says it has updated Alexa to prevent repeating such incidents in the future. In a statement to the BBC, the company said that it "took swift action to fix it" as soon as it became aware of the issue. Livdahl has since confirmed that the voice assistant no longer recommends any challenges. Instead, when asked for one, Alexa is drawing a blank, saying, "Sorry, I couldn't find the answer to your question."
The "penny challenge" is believed to have first started circulating on social media last year and was a viral hit on TikTok in the U.S. Multiple online videos purportedly show young people, mostly school kids, performing the challenge, with some ending in a minor blast and a ball of fire. Firefighters in the United States warned about the dangerous challenge last year after two students at Plymouth North High School in Plymouth, Massachusetts, performed the stunt at their school, resulting in two scorched electrical outlets, a damaged penny, and a burnt charger. Fortunately, no one was injured in that incident.
Source: Kristin Livdahl/Twitter, BBC, WBZ4/CBS Boston