Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant, put a little girl’s life in danger over the weekend, telling the 10-year-old to touch a live electrical plug with a penny.
The girl had asked Alexa, through the Echo smart speaker, for a “challenge to do.”
“Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,” Alexa responded.
The girl’s mother, Kristin Livdahl, took a screenshot of the occurrence as it showed in the Alexa smartphone app. The weather was bad weather outside, so the family did physical challenges inside.
Alexa found the challenge on the internet from an online news publication called Our Community Now. It isn’t clear how the news website initially reported on the dangerous challenge.
About a year ago, the challenge was promoted on TikTok and other social media platforms. It is harmful because metals conduct electricity and putting metal items into a socket can cause intensive electric shocks and fires.
On Wednesday, an Amazon spokesperson stated that the problem had been corrected.
“Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers. As soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it.”
Amazon didn’t go into detail about what that quick action was.
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