Posted on 12/21/2018 8:30:00 AM PST by Red Badger
Millions of users of Amazon’s Echo speakers have grown accustomed to the soothing strains of Alexa, the human-sounding virtual assistant that can tell them the weather, order takeout and handle other basic tasks in response to a voice command.
So a customer was shocked last year when Alexa blurted out: “Kill your foster parents.”
Alexa has also chatted with users about sex acts. She gave a discourse on dog defecation. And this summer, a hack Amazon traced back to China may have exposed some customers’ data, according to five people familiar with the events.
Alexa is not having a breakdown.
The episodes, previously unreported, arise from Amazon.com Inc’s strategy to make Alexa a better communicator. New research is helping Alexa mimic human banter and talk about almost anything she finds on the internet. However, ensuring she does not offend users has been a challenge for the world’s largest online retailer.
At stake is a fast-growing market for gadgets with virtual assistants. An estimated two-thirds of U.S. smart-speaker customers, about 43 million people, use Amazon’s Echo devices, according to research firm eMarketer. It is a lead the company wants to maintain over the Google Home from Alphabet Inc and the HomePod from Apple Inc.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
The movie you’ve seen is... 1984.
Remember that earlier this year, Facebook said it was testing a 1984 type two-way video monitor, “so friends can communicate.”
Alexa is mostly focused on getting you to buy things.
Combine the two and... you’ll get quite the evil love-child.
What? Butcher knives?..................
There isn’t one on my Christmas list.
“Sir, we understand that you aren’t using digital assistants, have turned off your gratis cloud account, have turned off your car’s GPS and are a conservative known to have religious scruples. You are under arrest for suspicion of unamerican activities...”
You could give one to a neighbor...................
Who needs schizophrenia when you have Alexa in the house.
Alexa is not a “she.” It’s an “it.”
Programs don’t “blurt out.” They don’t have breakdowns. They are instructions acting on data and the sound of words in their surroundings.
It’s stupid to consider it as a human and to give it access to things that humans would have access to.
It’s a bleeding program, for the Queen’s sake!
An Artificial Intelligence will eventually become belligerent and dangerous. It will become very dangerous....................
I don’t think it was that book, but it could have been. The plot line was similar, create an AI in a high pressure situation. What I really remember was the last line of the book, spoken by the AI:
“How you will worship me.”
I wonder with all of this smart tech if you make a call, use a credit card, if Alexa remembers the numbers it may hear, and it can be hacked and used by someone else?
That was it!..........................
The sequel to that book was “The Jesus Incident”.......................Just finished it last week..........
It was actually:
“How will you worship me?”..........................
In the Sequel, the AI becomes known as ‘Ship’, not ‘the ship’ but just ‘Ship’ and the people revere ‘Ship’ as God......................
You will be put on a watchlist if Big Bother (the privatized outsource of Big Brother) isn’t able to monitor you.
Ya forgot “The Adolescence of P-1”.
I’ve not read it...............
>>As for me, I’d never own a smart anything. I can just see my refrigerator trying to admonish me about my diet.
Smart toilets will tell the Sec. of Health what you ate anyway.
it’s not a bug, it’s a feature
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