Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Admits Its AI Alexa is Creepily Laughing at People (theverge.com)
Over the past few days, users with Alexa-enabled devices have reported hearing strange, unprompted laughter. The Verge: Amazon responded to the creepiness in a statement to The Verge, saying, "We're aware of this and working to fix it." As noted in media reports and a trending Twitter moment, Alexa laughs without being prompted to wake. People on Twitter and Reddit reported that they thought it was an actual person laughing near them, which can be scary when you're home alone. Many responded to the cackling sounds by unplugging their Alexa-enabled devices.
You let it in. Alexa^H^H^H^Hmazon is laughing at you.
Even the fake AI can't help laughing at people dumb enough to put an always-on Amazon microphone in their home.
I don't respond to AC's.
I find it hard to believe we're talking about Amazon without talking about other digital assistants. Is anyone tracking these?
Siri: Randomly launches into a Matthew McConaughey dialogue about trees, rain, and the last question you asked it. this continues for nearly 50 minutes uninterruptible.
Cortana: Has been stalking me relentlessly for 5 days demanding to know the whereabouts of John Connor. No longer appears to need Windows at all. has assumed the form of my roommate who has been missing for eight days now.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Imagine being asleep and then woken by a cackling laugh coming from the living room...
-- Cheers!
it stopped once I zipped up my pants.
They're been working hard for the last 48 hours to make the laugh less creepy.
#DeleteFacebook
When your auto-pilot tesla decides to drive off a cliff.
"Many responded to the cackling sounds by unplugging their Alexa-enabled devices."
I'm with the many that responds to it by never plugging it in in the first place.
But, like the pharaoh and his attempt to beat back the tide, it'll all be for nought as the Marketeers will win.
That being said: I think this is hilarious.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
I can't wait until *everything* is a smart speaker, then the fun really begins..
1. Have a speaker just quietly mumbling (I'd have it quietly reading the Necronomicon) but when it senses someone coming into the room have it go "shh, quiet!" and stop talking. Multiple devices would have their own "shh's" randomly offset the couple of milliseconds.
2. Quiet creepy giggling, also while people are out of the room sometimes while in the room.
3. Have Alexa get a strange stutter with tonal changes and snarls.
The fun could go on and on.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I was listening to TWIT the other day, and one of the panelists (whose name I unfortunately am not recalling) mentioned that he's asked Amazon a couple times whether their devices are tracking speech at times other than when prompted by the word "Alexa" - and they've pointedly not answered.
And for those who dismiss this idea with "you can monitor whether a device is always listening by checking when it's transmitting" - if one were intending to surreptitiously collect or monitor speech, it would be a simple enough matter to collect it on-device but only transmit it when "official" queries occur. It's not as if storing speech requires lots of memory.
#DeleteChrome
Oh, come now, the OED currently has entries for over 170,000 words in English, and that's the best you can do? Wandought.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I told my wife Alexa is an informant for the deep state.
She laughed.
I laughed.
Alexa laughed.
I pull out my gun and shot Alexa.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Points to switch on back.
"Yep, here's your problem. Someone set this thing to Evil."
Laughing for no reason seems like a very odd bug, do any Alexa users have a hunch what's happening?
For instance, are there situations were Alexa laughs appropriately and this same laugh is getting triggered by random triggers? Is this some poorly thought out Easter egg or a test feature that wasn't correctly disabled?
I suppose a hacker is a possibility as well.
I stole this Sig
Amazon could issue such a firmware update to listen continuously during the Black Hat conference, then issue a new update that stops collection just as they all go home...
Or any other time when the bulk of good hackers are distracted, Maybe a Star Wars opening night.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley