Alexa tells 10-year-old girl to put penny in plug socket

Amazon has updated its Alexa voice assistant after it "challenged" a 10-year-old girl to touch a coin to the prongs of a half-inserted plug.

The suggestion came after the girl asked Alexa for a "challenge to do".

"Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs," the smart speaker said.

Amazon said it fixed the error as soon as the company became aware of it.

The girl's mother, Kristin Livdahl, described the incident on Twitter.

She said: "We were doing some physical challenges, like laying down and rolling over holding a shoe on your foot, from a [physical education] teacher on YouTube earlier. Bad weather outside. She just wanted another one."

That's when the Echo speaker suggested partaking in the challenge that it had "found on the web".

The dangerous activity, known as "the penny challenge", began circulating on TikTok and other social media websites about a year ago.

Many metals conduct electricity and inserting them into live electrical sockets can cause electric shocks, fires and other damage.

"I know you can lose fingers, hands, arms," Michael Clusker, station manager at Carlisle East fire station, told The Press newspaper in Yorkshire in 2020.

"The outcome from this is that someone will get seriously hurt."

Fire officials in the US have also spoken out against the so-called challenge.

Ms Livdahl tweeted that she intervened, yelling: "No, Alexa, no!"

However, she said her daughter was "too smart to do something like that".

Amazon told the BBC in a statement that it had updated Alexa to prevent the assistant recommending such activity in the future.

"Customer trust is at the centre of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers," said Amazon in a statement.

"As soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it."

Alexa tells 10-year-old girl to touch live plug with penny

Amazon has fixed its voice assistant so that it will not suggest the dangerous “challenge” again.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[GHTD]

TikTok is the cancer of the Internet and I'm sad cucks blocked Trump's efforts to ban it.

 

[CharlesBarkley]

Some Indian dude in the Amazon slave HQ is going to get whipped super hard over this fuck-up, lol.

 

[WebLurker]

People should never have allowed these fucking things into their homes. Like the government needs more help to spy on you, why the fuck would you pay money to help them do so?

 

[CharlesBarkley]

People should never have allowed these fucking things into their homes. Like the government needs more help to spy on you, why the fuck would you pay money to help them do so?

To be fair, I love playing jeopardy and checking the weather. And the feds wanna see me jerk it to big titty milfs getting dp'ed? - Like, whatever. I would admit that shit to my employer so who cares.

 

[Screw Danlon]

Well, maybe rather than allow your robot nanny to supervise your kid, you get her a book of playing ideas. Or - God forbid - actually play with your kid.

If your 10 year old is stupid enough to electrocute themselves, they deserve it

That being said, a lot of these “challenges” like this and the Tide Pod challenge are clearly malicious assholes trying to hurt people, and just because the people falling for it are idiots, doesn’t mean the people originating these “challenges” shouldn’t be getting in trouble.

 

[elite_club]

If your the kind of person who raises their kid via Alexa, then the Alexa should tell your child to do things that result in death because clearly your genetic line was not meant to continue on.

 

[Dysnomia]

Alexa should be blocked from accessing anything that originated on TikTok.

https://people.com/human-interest/10-year-old-girl-dies-trying-blackout-challenge-from-tiktok/

A 10-year-old girl from Pennsylvania is dead after she attempted the "Blackout Challenge," a dangerous game that has recently circulated on social media networks.

Nyla Anderson was found unconscious in her home on Dec. 12 after allegedly trying the challenge, which dares participants to hold their breath until they pass out from a lack of oxygen, according to WPVI.

The young girl was taken to Nemours Children's Hospital but did not survive.

"I'm so hurt," her mother, Tawainna Anderson, told the news station. "This is a pain that won't go away. It's at the top of my throat. I am so hurt."

The "Blackout Challenge" — sometimes referred to as the "Choking Challenge" or "Pass-out Challenge"— predates most modern-day social networking sites and can be traced back at least as far as 2008, when 82 youths died as a result of the game, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

This year, at least three other children — Joshua Haileyesus, 12, and Robert Craig, 10, and LaTerius Smith Jr., 9 — have reportedly died after attempting the game.

"You wouldn't think 10-year-olds would try this," Anderson told WPVI. "They're trying because they're kids and they don't know better."

Your 10 year old should not be watching TikTok. Give them a ball and tell them to go outside.

There was a girl who died from the chubby bunny challenge too. Her mom was on Oprah talking about it. And that way way before TikTok. I think it might have been before Youtube. So it's not like these challenges are new. But TikTok has made it worse by making all of these retarded ways to kill yourself even more accessible to kids. At least this girl's mother was with her. Not all parents supervise their kids interacting with the internet.

Well, maybe rather than allow your robot nanny to supervise your kid, you get her a book of playing ideas. Or - God forbid - actually play with your kid.

If your 10 year old is stupid enough to electrocute themselves, they deserve it.

It looks like mom and the kid were playing games with Alexa and mom immediately told Alexa to stop when she suggested TikTok challenge retardation.

It makes me wonder though how many similar incidents have occurred before Amazon fixed it. Your kid shouldn't be babysat by Alexa and I'm surprised they don't have a cartoony version in the shape of a bear or something to watch your kids all day. Give it time.

 

[Enig]

To be fair, I love playing jeopardy and checking the weather. And the feds wanna see me jerk it to big titty milfs getting dp'ed? - Like, whatever. I would admit that shit to my employer so who cares.

Got a phone? It can access weather data.
Got a computer or laptop? There's hundreds of weather report sites and weather monitors you can run from the taskbar, not to mention the porn.
Got any game systems? Probably has some form of Jeopardy, weather and porn in this day and age; hell, even the Wii can do all that.
Got a TV? Your provider probably has an automated weather service, don't need that lameass Weather Channel.
Got a decent enough wall clock? Probably has both indoor and outdoor temp gages.

If you need a plastic soup can or plastic lump covered in canvas to know rain's coming or to jerk off then the real problem might be the sapient thing between Alexa and the floor.

 

[WeWuzFinns]

This is just an eugenics program intented to weed out all the genes that allow humans to be enslaved to robots.

 

[Billy Beer]

That's some 'error'. Just like those Japanese cartoons In the 90s that caused epileptic fits in kids that was 'just an error'.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

That reminds me when Steven Crowder asked some questions to Alexa.

 

[Pentex]

Based. We're living through the SHODAN origin story.

 

[Penis Drager]

I'm getting this image of Alexa as one of those bad, drug addicted parents who encourage their kids to do stupid shit to entertain their drug addicted friends.

 

[Miss Misery]

Alexa should be blocked from accessing anything that originated on TikTok.

https://people.com/human-interest/10-year-old-girl-dies-trying-blackout-challenge-from-tiktok/

> Black-out challenge
> four dead black kids

And no one of value was lost.

 

[GenitalFetishist]

How do you even die from holding your breath?? I was under the impression that, once you've held your breath for long enough to pass out, you begin to breathe again while you are unconscious.

 

[Quato Lives!]

Your kid shouldn't be babysat by Alexa and I'm surprised they don't have a cartoony version in the shape of a bear or something to watch your kids all day. Give it time.

Too late...

Embodied Moxie

Pasadena-based robotics company Embodied has unveiled Moxie, a fun, safe and engaging animate companion for children. Read more on urdesign: https://www.urde...

www.youtube.com

 

[Feline Supremacist]

Why is there never a useful robot? Where is my Mr. Handy? Until then, fuck off with Alexa, robo Spot dogs, robot security guards and Moxies, I need a damn Mr. Handy to do the dishes and walk the dog so when an agro pit comes at my doggo it'll get the flamethrower. Or plasma gun.

We have the tech but what the fuck is done with it? This bullshit Alexa and a wobbly dog that hood rats can trap and strip for parts. I am disgusted. Fuck you Bezos I hope your bimbo gets electrocuted by an Echo.

 

[Dang Woodchucks!]

Hold up, Alexa straight up told a child to "an hero"? And this isn't the first time?

Between this, the creepy laughter, and telling a young mother to kill herself, me thinks there has to be some kind of back-door Amazon techies use to get their sick kicks.

 

[JK Rowling]

It's like skynet has become self aware but instead of sending out scary terminators with guns they have a soft feminine voice in the corner of every room convincing people to kill themselves.