Warning: Your Amazon Alexa May Be Plotting Your Demise

Vivian Kane

Published: Mar 7, 2018 05:52 pm

This article is over 6 years old and may contain outdated information

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A number of Alexa owners have reported their personal AI assistants displaying some disturbing behavior. One Twitter user posted a video of her Alexa randomly laughing maniacally, apparently with no provocation.

So Alexa decided to laugh randomly while I was in the kitchen. Freaked @SnootyJuicer and I out. I thought a kid was laughing behind me. pic.twitter.com/6dblzkiQHp

— CaptHandlebar (@CaptHandlebar) February 23, 2018

Apparently, this isn’t an unusual occurrence, either. Amazon told BuzzFeed that they’re “aware of this and working to fix it.”

I’ve had my Alexa randomly start talking, sometimes with no one in the room. It’s usually just a simple “I didn’t catch that” which I assume is because it was triggered by something on the television in the next room. Occasionally she says longer sentences for no reason. But I’ve never experienced any of this very HAL-like behavior.

Lying in bed about to fall asleep when Alexa on my Amazon Echo Dot lets out a very loud and creepy laugh… there’s a good chance I get murdered tonight.

— Gavin Hightower (@GavinHightower) February 26, 2018

I live alone and have lights controlled by Amazon Echo. Tonight, while sleeping, i closed my eyes and said “Alexa, lamp off.”
I heard a woman laugh, and lights were still on.

Now, I know that stupid device heard “laugh” instead of “lamp off”, but I can’t sleep anymore….. #fml

— Vedant Naik (@vedantNAIK) March 4, 2018

Replying bc THIS creepy thing happened last night: we got home and, totally unprompted, our Amazon Echo/Alexa started talking. And then i realized it was listing off local cemeteries and funeral homes??? I’d rather it laugh at me tbh

— Kamo Boomin (@HeyItsKamo) March 7, 2018

So, this is going to sound insane, and I do mean literally insane, but the gods as my witness…it really happened.

I was just asking #Alexa about my day tomorrow and checking for news and weather updates when she literally stopped doing what I asked her.

Literally.
Then…
1/

— Robert #Resist Sandy (@frodofied) March 7, 2018

She started doing random shit. No joke. But then I asked her to play my @BettyBuckley mix she scared the crap out of me by telling me the definition of the word please! I swear to God!

THEN,

And, not making this up, I said “Alexa you’re freaking me out” & she fucking laughed!

— Robert #Resist Sandy (@frodofied) March 7, 2018

Random laughter from echo dot?? from r/amazonecho

As if the whole listening-in-on-your-conversations thing wasn’t creepy enough, this might be the motivation I need to bury my Alexa in my basement forever. What about you all? Will you fight or welcome our tiny, helpful robot overlords?

(via Twitter, image: Amazon)

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Author

Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.