Amazon’s Alexa, a virtual assistant, gave a 10-year-old a life-threatening suggestion. It came up when the girl asked Alexa for a “challenge to do.”
- “Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,” the smart speaker said, per BBC News.
This appeared to be an example of the “penny challenge,” which went viral on TikTok last year. Experts warned people not to participate because it can electrocute individuals and cause fires.
The 10-year-old girl’s mother, Kristin Livdahl, took to Twitter to describe the event.
- “I was right there and yelled, No, Alexa, no!” like it was a dog. My daughter says she is too smart to do something like that anyway,” she wrote.
I was right there and yelled, No, Alexa, no!” like it was a dog. My daughter says she is too smart to do something like that anyway.
— Kristin Livdahl (@klivdahl) December 27, 2021
Another user asked why they were doing the challenges to begin with. “Is it views or is it that sense of daring?”
- To this, Livdahl replied, “We were doing some physical challenges, like laying down and rolling over holding a shoe on your foot, from a Phy Ed teacher on YouTube earlier. Bad weather outside. She just wanted another one.”
We were doing some physical challenges, like laying down and rolling over holding a shoe on your foot, from a Phy Ed teacher on YouTube earlier. Bad weather outside. She just wanted another one.
— Kristin Livdahl (@klivdahl) December 28, 2021
Per Business Insider, Amazon said it has fixed the issue since then.
- “Customer trust is at the center of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers,” a company spokesperson said, per the report. “As soon as we became aware of this error, we quickly fixed it, and are taking steps to help prevent something similar from happening again.”