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.

Comments

Re:"We're aware of this and working to fix it."

[DontBeAMoran]

They're been working hard for the last 48 hours to make the laugh less creepy.

Re:no mention of competitor problems?

[jckline]

If you ask Google Assistant "Are you fucking stupid?" it replies "I like to think I'm a work in progress." Which, honestly, is a better response than I get from my co-workers.

It's interesting

[93 Escort Wagon]

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.

internet mime

[Lead Butthead]

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.