Slashdot Mirror
Reddit-Quoting Alexa Tells a User: 'Kill Your Foster Parents' (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian:
An Amazon customer got a grim message last year from Alexa, the virtual assistant in the company's smart speaker device: "Kill your foster parents." The user who heard the message from his Echo device wrote a harsh review on Amazon's website, Reuters reported -- calling Alexa's utterance "a whole new level of creepy". An investigation found the bot had quoted from the social media site Reddit, known for harsh and sometimes abusive messages, people familiar with the investigation told Reuters. The odd command is one of many hiccups that have happened as Amazon tries to train its machine to act something like a human, engaging in casual conversations in response to its owner's questions or comments.
And Alexa also can't tell a human voice from a parrot, according to a Huffington Post story shared by PolygamousRanchKid: Rocco, an African grey, was caught using the virtual assistant to play his favorite music, tell jokes and even order snacks, The Times of London reports. Thankfully the device's parental lock system prevented the clever boy from actually purchasing any items which included strawberries, ice cream and even a kettle.
And Alexa also can't tell a human voice from a parrot, according to a Huffington Post story shared by PolygamousRanchKid: Rocco, an African grey, was caught using the virtual assistant to play his favorite music, tell jokes and even order snacks, The Times of London reports. Thankfully the device's parental lock system prevented the clever boy from actually purchasing any items which included strawberries, ice cream and even a kettle.
I got an Echo recently. It's useful for some things - you can ask it factual questions ("what's the weather/time", "how many feet in a furlong"), and it's good for casual music ("Alexa, play some Christmas music"). But beyond that, you have to learn what to say to control stuff ("tell x to do y"). It's no good at interpreting intent - you need to learn what it expects instead of it learning what you want.
But, for the $25 it cost on a Black Friday sale, it's more a fun toy than a useful assistant.
I just plan on going into my Amazon account every few weeks and deleting all voice recordings. All the ones it's kept so far have checked out to be innocuous. If someone finds out I've been telling my Echo to turn on the living room lights, I really don't care (much).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law