Many children now see Alexa as a shrewd conversationalist who has the right answer to every query. This has now almost been the undoing of a ten-year-old girl. Now the Internet is rightly discussing the safety of Amazon’s voice assistant.
The Penny Challenge
But how did the girl end up maneuvering herself into a dangerous situation? The child used out of boredom it so-called “challenge function” of Alexa. Here, users can have the voice assistant set them a challenge. The friendly voice answered the girl with the following challenge:
“Put a cell phone charger about halfway into a wall socket, then touch a penny to the exposed contacts.”
Fortunately, the girl’s mother immediately jumped in and prevented her daughter from completing the potentially life-threatening challenge.
Better control of online content must come
The so-called Penny Challenge highlights the risks that voice assistants like Alexa can pose. Users on social media enjoy short videos in which participants in the challenge accidentally electrocute themselves. This makes it clear how important it is to control the sources that Alexa uses. Alexa only became aware of the Penny Challenge through a simple search on the Internet. The scenario with the little girl that has now become known has now reignited the discussion that has already arisen frequently
Amazon has already intervened
Of course, the online shipping giant has also reacted as quickly as possible. Thus one had removed the serious problem from Alexa’s database. In this context, the company let announce through a spokesman:
“Customer trust is at the heart of everything we do, and Alexa is designed to provide customers with accurate, relevant and helpful information.”
Further, the spokesperson said:
“When we learned of this bug, we acted quickly to fix it.”