Amazon has been forced to update its Alexa voice assistant software after a device “challenged” a 10-year-old girl to put a coin into a live electrical socket. BBC News reports that the girl asked Alexa for a “challenge” to do, with the smart speaker replying: “Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs.” It could have been incredibly dangerous.
- The girl’s mother, Kristin Livdahl, shared the incident on Twitter. She wrote: “We were doing some physical challenges, like laying down and rolling over holding a shoe on your foot, from a [physical education] teacher on YouTube earlier. Bad weather outside. She just wanted another one.” However, the Echo said it found the suggested challenge, known as the “penny challenge,” online.
- The Penny Challenge began circulating online about a year ago. Like many terrible trends, it started on TikTok and spread to other social media sites in 2020. Needless to say, it’s incredibly dangerous and a terrible idea.
- Amazon jumped into action as soon as it learned of the fault. Thankfully, the girl wasn’t hurt and her mother revealed that she shouted “No, Alexa, no!” as soon as the speaker made the suggestion. However, she also added that her daughter was “too smart to do something like that.”
- The company gave the BBC a statement promising nothing like that would happen again. “Customer trust is at the center of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers,” Amazon said. “As soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it.”