Amazon’s Alexa allegedly told a 10-year-old child to touch an exposed plug socket with a penny.
This past weekend, a mother named Kristin Livdahl tweeted that her voice-assistant device Alexa told her kid to use a penny to touch an exposed plug socket. Alexa’s response came after the child allegedly asked the gadget to give her a challenge, CNN Business reports.
“My 10 year old just asked Alexa on our Echo for a challenge and this is what she said,” Livdahl’s tweet reads, according to the news outlet. “Here’s something I found on the web. According to ourcommunitynow.com: The challenge is simple: plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,” Alexa’s response read, the mother says.
Amazon responded to the viral tweet in a statement to CNN saying they have fixed the issue.
“Customer trust is at the center of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers,” a spokesperson for Amazon told CNN in a statement. “As soon as we became aware of this error, we quickly fixed it, and will continue to advance our systems to help prevent similar responses in the future.”
The penny to exposed charger plug socket is reportedly a challenge from TikTok. Captain Brian Tanner from the Provo Fire Department in Utah says users should not participate in this “challenge.”
“You may have heard of the TikTok experiment involving a cell phone charger, a coin and an outlet. “I’m telling you this is dangerous stuff, don’t do it,” explained Tanner, per CNN Business.
