Amazon's Alexa Proposed Life-Threatening Challenge To A 10-Year Old

Amazon.com Inc’s AMZN smart voice assistant Alexa has left the parents of a 10-year old shocked after it suggested a dangerous challenge to the child.

What Happened: Kristin Livdahl’s ten-year-old daughter was proposed a “simple challenge” by Alexa. The voice assistant told her to "plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,” as per a tweet, first noted in Bleeping Computer.

OMFG My 10 year old just asked Alexa on our Echo for a challenge and this is what she said. pic.twitter.com/HgGgrLbdS8

— Kristin Livdahl (@klivdahl) December 26, 2021

Users of the smart voice assistant can ask Alexa to assign challenges like engaging them with simple verbal games.

In response to the incident, Amazon said, "as soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it,” reported Bleeping Computer.

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Why It Matters: Livdahl said she was in the room when Alexa dished out the dangerous challenge to her daughter and she yelled, “No, Alexa, no!' like it was a dog,” reported Bleeping Computer.

In response to Livdahl’s tweet, another user of the social media platform Steven Webster said he purchased his 7-year old an Amazon kids subscription with a cute tiger speaker. The child asked Alexa to give him a Santa fact and was told that Santa was a myth in different countries.

I bought my 7 year old an Amazon kids subscription with this cute tiger. He loved it, played adventures and animal workouts all day. Then asks before bed, “Alexa give me a Santa fact” and she starts telling him Santa is a myth in different countries. pic.twitter.com/mOqoychEi9

— Steven Webster (@stevenjwebster) December 28, 2021

The Echo Dot (4th Gen) Kids speaker referred to by Webster apparently includes parental controls according to an Amazon listing. 

Children are increasingly a target audience for virtual assistants. In October, an audio content company created a download for Alexa that scans rooms for make-believe monsters, as per a statement. 

Price Action: On Tuesday, Amazon shares closed almost 0.6% higher at $3,413.22 in the regular session and rose nearly 0.3% in the after-hours trading.

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