As if edging into a world overtaken by artificial intelligence weren’t scary enough, Amazon’s voice-activated assistant Alexa is reported to emit unprompted, chilling laughter in the middle of the night.
It’s scaring the wits out of owners of the Amazon Echo Dot.
Gavin Hightower tweeted, “Lying in bed about to fall asleep when Alexa on my Amazon Dot lets out a very loud and creepy laugh...there’s a good chance I get murdered tonight.”
Another woman reports using Alexa as a timer while exercising, and when she asked how much time was left, Alexa laughed at her.
People, home alone, are getting freaked out.
Prompted by social media memes noting her bone-chilling outbursts, Amazon says the problem has been resolved. They say her setting for “Alexa laugh” was too vague, and was being prompted by unanticipated commands that she incorrectly heard as “Alexa laugh.”
Now she’s been reprogrammed to only respond to “Alexa, can you laugh?”
Amazon, who notoriously protects their sales figures, won’t say how many Amazon Dots are out there, expect that they’ve sold “tens of millions.”