As we're getting closer and closer to having our electronic devices do everything for us, there still remain instances that indicate huge red flags. The latest of such occurrences is the strange, laughing Alexa. Alexa is Amazon's digital, personal assistant. Similarly to Google Home and Siri, it follows out the orders of your voices commands. However, over the past few days, it would abruptly start to laugh. Amazon is now addressing the issue.
The internet was in a stir after their Alexa-enabled devices started to let out robotic chuckles at seemingly-random moments. In response, Amazon is disabling the the command, "Alexa, laugh." Instead users will have to resort to asking, "Alexa, can you laugh?" Amazon stated this response is "less likely to have false positives."
Another change, as to not scare users if Alexa laughs again, is to change the device's response in the case of a false positive. Rather than simply laughing, Alexa will say, "Sure, I can laugh" before it would emulate a laugh. The change is likely to put users' minds to rest, as many of them joked online that their device, or home, was haunted. Parallels were also drawn to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and it's depiction of artificial intelligence. Let's hope it never comes to that with Alexa.
[via The Verge]
