Alexa falls prey to misinformation, endangering 10-year old
December 29, 2021
Kristin Livdahl and her daughter were trying some physical education challenges they had found on YouTube when they decided to ask Alexa for more activities. Amazon’s AI-powered agent answered, “Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs.” Apparently, Alexa got the (bad) idea on the internet. (What are the chances?) The “penny challenge” was apparently a prank that had grown popular on TikTok. Amazon said it corrected the error as soon as it learned of the problem.
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