Amazon assistant Alexa instructed a little girl to stick her fingers in a socket

The young woman had asked Alexa to give her a challenge to act. The company claims to have solved the problem.

Artificial intelligence can sometimes be very bad advice. As reported BBC, Amazon’s voice assistant, named Alexa, is very dangerous for a 10 year old girl.

After the latter told him to bring a challenge, Amazon’s tool suggested he touch the needles of a socket with a coin. It could have damaged the electrical system, caused a fire or been struck by electricity.

Alexa update

“Here’s something I found on the internet. The challenge is simple: insert the phone charger halfway into the wall shop and then touch the visible needles with a coin,” Alexa recommended, according to a screenshot posted by the baby’s mother on Twitter.

In fact, this recommendation echoes the “Penny Challenge,” a dangerous challenge shared on the Chinese app TikTok in recent months, which has caused extensive material damage, but also serious injuries.

To provide endless answers to users, Google, Amazon or Apple’s voice assistants automatically search the Internet for answers. If the methods of these American giants were to be sorted by information in theory, errors could never be ruled out.

To the BBC, Amazon announces that it has updated its voice assistant so that it no longer offers such challenges. For her part, the young woman’s mother confirms that Alexa did not fortunately attempt the proposed experiment.