The uncharted territory and black boxes that some tech devices are in are brought to the fore by a recent incident with Amazon’s Voice Assistant Alexa. A 10-year-old girl who asked Alexa for a challenge was advised by the voice assistant to partake in the penny challenge which entails touching a coin to the prongs of a half-inserted phone charger with the switch turned on. The dangerous “penny challenge” started circulating on TikTok in 2020. Amazon said it has fixed the error immediately it became aware of the incident and has now updated the voice assistant.
The report indicates that the young girl was with her mother when the incident happened and the mum immediately intervened by shouting “No, Alexa, no”, although she knew her daughter was knowledgeable enough not to take on the dangerous challenge. It is unclear how Alexa got to suggest a very dangerous endeavor and this brings to focus again on the need for greater scrutiny of these devices and their algorithms.
Amazon stated that it had updated Alexa to prevent the suggestion of dangerous activity in the future, but it remains to be seen how effective the new updates will be. The risk remains and the voice assistant should be put to fair usage. Amazon insists that customer trust is at the heart of its activities and operations, stressing that Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information always.
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