Amazon’s voice assistant asks a kid to insert a coin
Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant, challenged a 10-year-old girl by asking her to touch the ends of a half-plugged plug with a coin. Upon development, Amazon fixed the bug by updating its voice assistant.
The little girl’s mother, Kristin Livdahl, described what happened on Twitter:
“We’ve been watching and doing some physical challenges from a [PE] teacher on YouTube before, like reaching and rolling with a shoe on your feet. The weather was bad outside. [My daughter] just wanted to do one more.”
At the time, the Amazon Echo assistant offered a challenge he found on the internet, saying, “Plug a phone charger halfway into the outlet, then tap the exposed ends with a coin.”
“No, Alexa, no!” Livdahl responded to the situation. she shouted, interrupting. She also said that her daughter was “too smart to do such a thing”.
Amazon told the BBC they’ve updated Alexa to prevent the assistant from suggesting such activity in the future.
“Customer trust is at the heart of everything we do, and Alexa is designed to provide customers with accurate, relevant and helpful information,” Amazon said.
Popular on TikTok
Known as the “penny challenge,” this dangerous activity started circulating on TikTok and other social media sites about a year ago.
Many metals conduct electricity, and plugging them into electrical outlets can cause electric shocks, fires, and other damage.
Carlisle East Fire Station Manager Michael Clusker warned of this dangerous challenge in 2020, telling The Press in Yorkshire, “I know you can lose your fingers, hands and arms.”
Fire officials in the US also opposed this so-called challenge.
