Child Asks Alexa for Challenge, Artificial Intelligence Responds with a Shocking and Deadly Suggestion

A mother is rightfully upset after Alexa suggested to her daughter that she try a potentially deadly TikTok challenge.

Today’s parents are facing new challenges as technology advances. Many have employed Alexa, Amazon’s digital assistant, in their homes to help make things easier. Developers have laced in some entertainment features along with the practical application of answering questions and operating Alexa-compatible devices like outlets.

One of those features apparently includes the ability to ask Alexa to provide a challenge. She doesn’t tailor to her audience, as evidenced by her response to Kristin Livdahl’s 10-year-old daughter.

The child had been participating in some indoor athletic tasks that a YouTube physical education teacher had recommended and tasked Alexa with providing the next one.

Alexa responded with:

“The challenge is simple: plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs.”

The dangerous stunt went viral a few years ago as people created sparks, damaged electrical outlets, and started fires in their pursuit of 15 seconds of internet fame.

Fortunately, Livdahl was present to shut it down immediately. Her daughter also responded that she was “too smart to do something like that anyway.”  

One Twitter user pointed out that the referenced article was actually a warning against the dangers of the challenge; the digital assistance was unable to decipher the difference.

This artificial intelligence is often taken for granted. We assume that it will decipher through the information and provide the best result. The reality is it gives the “top” answer and has no input on what that answer is.

In the case of Alexa, Amazon claims that it uses Bing for all its search results and depends on user requests to improve the service. As people worldwide use the technology, it acts as a true artificial intelligence by self-monitoring and adjusting. Only in a very few cases does a human get involved to make manual shifts.

This appears to be one of them as Amazon has since responded with the generic response usually given to all issues by any company: contact us for further assistance.

One user quipped back: “You have to disable the ‘kill my child’ setting.”

3 comments
  1. Here’s something fun to do… if you have an Android phone ask it to “sing a song”… not “play sing a song” but just “sing a song”. Seems Google has added a “feature” where the song is about getting vaccinated.

    So big tech is not there to help you. More to help themselves

  2. I would NEVER have one of those things in my home! We don’t even own a smart phone anymore. What did we do before all this tech junk?! We used our brains, read books, looked things up in the dictionary or encyclopedia and, believe it or not, people actually knew how to spell and write neatly! Humans have not evolved, AI has. Kinda’ scary. 🙁

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