Amazon's AI powered digital assistant Alexa challenged a 10-year-old girl to touch a live socket with a penny. The girl's mother, however, intervened timely and stopped her daughter, even though the mother claims her girl was far too clever to do it. Amazon updated its voice assistant right after the story made headlines.
The young had reportedly been playing a 'challenge to do' game with Alexa when the suggestion was made. The voice assistant was quoted saying, "Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs."
The frantic mother tweeted about the incident and 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."
The suggestion was made by Alexa as something it found on the web, referring to the 'penny challenge' that has been quite popular recently and has been circulating around on TikTok and other social media sites. Inserting metals like coins can seriously injure a person resulting in an electric shock, fire, or other harmful damage. Fire officials have spoken up against this challenge and how dangerous it is.
Amazon announced that it immediately fixed the error once it became known to it, saying, "Customer trust is at the centre of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers."
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