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Amazon Alexa slammed for giving lethal challenge to 10-year-old girl
Bleeping Computer ^ | 12 28 2021 | Ax Sharma

Posted on 12/28/2021 1:09:32 PM PST by yesthatjallen

An Amazon Echo owner was left shocked after Alexa proposed a dangerous challenge to her ten-year-old daughter.

AI-powered virtual assistants like Alexa that power smart devices and speakers such as Echo, Echo Dot, and Amazon Tap, come with a plethora of capabilities. These include enabling the users to play simple verbal games or request "challenges" on demand.

A 'shocking' challenge

When sitting idle, such as during the holidays, it wouldn't be unusual for an Amazon Echo owner to ask Alexa, "tell me a challenge to do."

Typically such an auditory request has the AI prompting the user with a quiz question or a similar brainstorming activity.

"The challenge is simple," said Alexa. "Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs."

"I was right there and yelled, 'No, Alexa, no!' like it was a dog," said Livdahl, a writer and a worried mother.

"My daughter says she is too smart to do something like that anyway."

SNIP

(Excerpt) Read more at bleepingcomputer.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: alexa; amazon; challenge
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To: BobL

“Any parent exposing their 10 year old kid to an Alexa needs to have CPS called.”

Why?


121 posted on 12/28/2021 5:13:08 PM PST by TexasGator (UF)
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To: lee martell
Damn "Clutch Cargo"!...

Next you are going to mention "Felix the Cat" the wonderful wonderful cat..That my older sister hated!!! HAHA!!!

122 posted on 12/28/2021 5:13:25 PM PST by Osage Orange (1961 VW Two Door Truck)
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To: carriage_hill

“no Nest, no Alexa, no Ring, just my HP box running Win-7 Pro x64”

Which by logging on here reveals your identity to the site and to the government.


123 posted on 12/28/2021 5:14:48 PM PST by TexasGator (UF)
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To: BobL

“Any parent exposing their 10 year old kid to an Alexa needs to have CPS called.”

Interesting ...

I never took you for a nanny-state supporter!


124 posted on 12/28/2021 5:31:19 PM PST by TexasGator (UF)
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To: TexasGator

No comment on how I do it, anonymously.


125 posted on 12/28/2021 5:52:15 PM PST by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: TexasGator

Pandora does


126 posted on 12/28/2021 6:08:33 PM PST by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: GingisK
Why anyone wants one of those things in the home remains a mystery to me.

I have a dumbass, apparently former buddy of mine who has this in his house, and the GPS tracker on his car, the whole works. I asked him one day if it didn't bother him that he could be tracked and monitored 24x7, and he replied "Why would it? I have nothing to hide."

A lot of our fellow citizens aren't even American anymore.
127 posted on 12/28/2021 6:11:00 PM PST by fr_freak
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To: TexasGator

You never go out without your wife?

Never said that. I said we go to the store (grocery) together. If I’m going out alone it’s for something I need. She’s grown up and has her own car as well... she needs something she can go to the store as well. It’s what adults do.

Talk to your gadgets, your choice.

I just refuse to use that shxt and I don’t keep a cellphone glued to my ass. When friends ask if I got the text they sent, I say probably. They know enough to call on the land line if I don’t answer the cell.


128 posted on 12/28/2021 6:17:17 PM PST by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: fr_freak
Unless things can be rather dramatically changed, liberals will continue to consolidate their power with the help of "big tech". Combine that with the hateful ideas of marginalizing conservatives, even labeling them "enemy of the state" or "terrorists", it won't be long before they try to gather us up for the camps. Some people seem to want to make that easy.

Nothing to hide indeed. Our own government is slowly but steadily turning against us.

129 posted on 12/28/2021 6:25:01 PM PST by GingisK
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To: maddog55

“She’s grown up and has her own car as well... she needs something she can go to the store as well. It’s what adults do.”

Married adults gladly help their spouses.

I go to stores several times week for my wife. If I otherwise go out, I ask if she needs anything picked up.

It is what LOVING adults do.

“When friends ask if I got the text they sent, I say probably.”

Do they call you a friend?


130 posted on 12/28/2021 6:25:10 PM PST by TexasGator (UF)
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To: TexasGator

“I never took you for a nanny-state supporter!”

Generally not, but when a parent is outright ABUSING a child, I do support CPS intervention. Exposing the child to Alexa is nearly as bad as sending the kid to public school - both worthy of at least an investigation as to the motive of the parent.


131 posted on 12/28/2021 6:27:35 PM PST by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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To: maddog55

“Never said that.”

Never said you did. I was asking if you did.


132 posted on 12/28/2021 6:28:23 PM PST by TexasGator (UF)
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To: carriage_hill

The Internet is not passive.


133 posted on 12/28/2021 6:29:18 PM PST by aspasia
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To: BobL

“Generally not, but when a parent is outright ABUSING a child, I do support CPS intervention. “

That is an opinion, not fact. Would you support your neighbor calling CPS because, in their opinion, exposing a child to conservative ideas is abuse?


134 posted on 12/28/2021 6:31:36 PM PST by TexasGator (UF)
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To: BobL

“Generally not, but when a parent is outright ABUSING a child, I do support CPS intervention. Exposing the child to Alexa is nearly as bad as sending the kid to public school - both worthy of at least an investigation as to the motive of the parent.”

How many such cases of ‘abuse’ are you personally aware of?

How many times have you called CPS versus how many times have you been a silent enabler of those ‘abuses’?


135 posted on 12/28/2021 6:35:15 PM PST by TexasGator (UF)
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To: Sans-Culotte

Hahahaha...my wife teases me when I use Siri when she answers me in the feminine voice! (There is smirking and good-natured eye-rolling there sometimes...:)


136 posted on 12/28/2021 6:47:03 PM PST by rlmorel (Nothing can foster principles of freedom more effectively than the imposition of tyranny.)
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To: Osage Orange

Bwaaaaahahhaaaaahahaaaaa! What a rush...I have not seen that in decades, and as soon as I saw that...it all came back! Thanks...:)


137 posted on 12/28/2021 6:50:10 PM PST by rlmorel (Nothing can foster principles of freedom more effectively than the imposition of tyranny.)
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To: TexasGator

See in an adult household if I’m going out I do ask if she needs anything. 9 out of 10 times we go together so I don’t need a cell phone. Same if she goes out.

Point being is I don’t need a cell phone glued to my ass or have conversations with pieces of equipment laying around my house.

My friends don’t call me friend, they call me brother because we served together and they know I would do anything for them anytime and vice versa and we stay in touch all the time.

Other people are just that, other people.


138 posted on 12/28/2021 6:50:25 PM PST by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: lee martell

Ah...I know exactly what you are talking about there-I have seen that exercise, and I cannot remember who did it.

It might have been John Cleese doing that, taking some banal piece of text or an ad out of a newspaper, and while reading it, doing exactly as you described, raising and lowering his voice, putting accents in all the right (wrong) places, but...what really made it was his facial expressions as he did so! The eyebrows and all...


139 posted on 12/28/2021 6:53:22 PM PST by rlmorel (Nothing can foster principles of freedom more effectively than the imposition of tyranny.)
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To: rlmorel

Ha! I have not seen it in years..myself!!


140 posted on 12/28/2021 6:55:47 PM PST by Osage Orange (1961 VW Two Door Truck)
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