It’s quiet in the house. Nobody else is home, and the cat is fast asleep. Then you hear a disembodied woman’s voice let out a short, mocking cackle.
No, you’re (probably) not being haunted, it’s just Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant malfunctioning in a profoundly creepy way.
Some Alexa users have reported hearing an unprompted laugh from their smart speaker devices in the last day. The laugh happens randomly, when nobody is using the device, or in response to request to turn on or off lights.
“We’re aware of this and working to fix it,” Amazon said in a statement, confirming the issue. The company did not elaborate on how widespread the laugh is. In a later statement, Amazon said the device can mistakenly hear the command, “Alexa, laugh.”
Twitter Reactions
It’s causing people some sleepless nights:
https://twitter.com/vedantNAIK/status/970231970583195648
Some get a polite “tee hee” instead of something more creepy:
Just read on Twitter that Alexa is freaking people out with a random ‘witch-like-laugh’! I just got a polite Tee hee #Alexa pic.twitter.com/y6dTQ7qJDE
— Mark Wisniewski (@MarkCoolski) March 7, 2018
Although, Alexa isn’t the only machine with a “creepy” laugh, some argue:
And people think Amazon Alexa's laugh is creepy… pic.twitter.com/uQWGTUUGHz
— The Art Fella 🖌️ (@Secoh2000) March 7, 2018
But, you’ve got to admit—it is kind of scary:
Damn….now MY Alexa is laughing randomly!#phish #alexa laugh pic.twitter.com/37hr2kJ3b5
— Phishymemes (@phishymemes) March 8, 2018
Finding A Solution
“We are changing that phrase to be ‘Alexa, can you laugh?’ which is less likely to have false positives, and we are disabling the short utterance ‘Alexa, laugh.'” Amazon said. “We are also changing Alexa’s response from simply laughter to ‘Sure, I can laugh’ followed by laughter.”
Alexa’s laugh isn’t the only thing that’s freaking out users. Others have claimed Alexa has stopped responding to requests. One Twitter user said their Amazon Echo suddenly began listing names of local funeral homes and cemeteries, also unprompted.
Holy shit, i almost forgot. So we got home last night and, totally unprompted, our Amazon Echo/Alexa started talking. And then i realized it was listing off local cemeteries and funeral homes??? What the FUCK, dude
— Kameaux Chachere's (@HeyItsKamo) March 7, 2018
While voice assistants like Alexa have been welcomed into many homes as fun, family-friendly technology, some people are still unsettled by them.
The speakers use always-listening microphones to detect phrases like “Alexa,” and some people worry that they could be collecting additional data that could be used by marketers or even law enforcement. Audio recordings collected by an Alexa device have already been used as evidence in a murder case.
Of course, when voice assistants start acting on their own, it also raises concerns about what artificial intelligence might be capable of. But it’s unlikely that Alexa has become sentient and is intentionally frightening users with the laughs. (Probably.)
Written by Heather Kelly for CNN.
The-CNN-Wire
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