An extremely dangerous challenge was posed by voice assistant Alexa to a 10-year-old child. The case happened in the United States with a device from the Echo line, which suggested to the child that she plug a cell phone charger into the socket, but only halfway, and use a coin to touch the partially exposed plugs, an action that generates sparks and the risk of fire and electric shock.
The child did not actually perform the act, both because the child’s mother, Kristin Livdahl, was present at the time and because of the later speech of her daughter, who said she was smart enough not to do so. Still, the case raised an alert to parents and users of digital assistants regarding the use of the challenge feature, commonly used to obtain simple questions or games, but which can reproduce questionable results from internet searches.
In this case, the deadly challenge would have been found on a website called Our Community Now, a local news site focused on coastal cities in the state of Florida. The original publication, according to the American press, was from January 2020 and spoke about the danger of dangerous challenges that are passed on through TikTok, also as a warning to parents.
Want to catch up on the best tech news of the day? Access and subscribe to our new youtube channel, Kenyannews News. Every day a summary of the main news from the tech world for you!
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
According to Livdahl, the Echo device that suggested the challenge was a gift and had been used to set timers, play music and, during school holidays, challenge children to move around indoors since it’s cold in the US. The mother said that she got something positive out of the experience, not only because nothing happened, but also because of the opportunity to talk with her daughter about the dangers of information freely found on the internet, disseminated without foundation and, often, with dangerous results.
In an official statement, Amazon claimed to have acted quickly to remove the result of suggestions given by Alexa; the company said the case was a mistake, but did not say exactly what caused it. The company just claims that consumer confidence is at the heart of everything the company does. Representatives also contacted Livdahl to understand more about the matter.
