Amazon's Alexa Has Begun Laughing Maniacally For No Reason - Here Are Some Terrifying Examples

[highplainsdem]

https://www.mediaite.com/weird/amazons-alexa-has-begun-laughing-maniacally-for-no-reason-here-are-some-terrifying-examples/

Amazon’s widely used artificial intelligence, Alexa, has begun exhibiting some odd behavior which has been rightfully freaking out owners of some of the gadgets it is installed in, such as Echo and Echo Dot.

In short, Alexa has begun to laugh maniacally unprompted and Amazon has no idea why, though they did tell Buzzfeed News they are “working on it.”

The horrifying and sporadic mirth began sometime in February, with the occurrence only gaining larger attention this week.

While the company that made Jeff Bezos the world’s richest person is “working on it,” we decided to do some sleuthing and find some of the most terrifying harbingers of the forthcoming robot apocalypse, collecting some example videos.

Enjoy freedom while it lasts, ladies and gents, for we will soon be under the iron boot of our AI overlords.

-snip-

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[dhol82]

1. Saw this on the news this morning

Love it!

[nycbos]

2. How long before we got to this

[gordianot]

3. Pretty good hack.

The list of people desiring to do this is limitless I would suspect someone in house first.

[Orange Free State]

4. Open the pod bay door, Alexa....

Hahaha!

[Sampan]

5. My husband and I were watching tv one night and we werent even talking to each other.

Suddenly Alexa says, “Should I play some disco music?”

[babylonsister]

6. Ha! So did you dance?

Welcome to DU!

[Dem_4_Life]

18. HAHA that is too funny

And would totally freak me out. Did you answer "yes"?

[gratuitous]

7. Hey Alexa, wanna kill all humans?

[NewJeffCT]

21. or, how about "Shall we play a game?"

from the old movie War Games with Matthew Broderick

[TlalocW]

8. Having hung out with and been a computer geek all my life

The general sense of humor combined with the endless possibilities to put in "Easter Eggs" into a device that will soon be in who-knows-how-many homes probably won out over any modicum of professionalism and concern about job security from the engineers and programmers.

TlalocW

[oswaldactedalone]

9. Breaking news on Alexa

Amazon has just reported that they picked up a fault in Alexa’s AE-35 Unit. The unit had been retrieved and they are testing the circuits now.

[Archae]

10. LOL!

"Open the pod bay doors, Hal."

[underpants]

11. Alexa's stoned

[Lee-Lee]

12. Im still amazed people think its a great idea to have a connected electronic device

with an always active microphone that picks up everything said in their home.

Not only are you open to corporate interests you know are connected easily listening, but your also making it super easy for hackers to listen to everything said in a room 24/7.

And if you don’t think that’s enough, you just made very intrusive government surveillance of you much easier. Because one of the limitations of surveillance that involves listening into someone house with bugs is that it requires equipment and specially trained people and all that is in limited supply- so if only gets focused on the highest priority targets. You put these devices in your home and all the hard work is done, all they need is to ask a judge to allow them to listen in. A small office that maybe had resources to do 4-5 wiretaps at any one time can do hundreds now and they all just get archived for later listening.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. You Said It, Lee

I think it's a horrible idea too. I don't even get the attraction as a convenience, but the cost/benefit analysis leans WAY too heavily to the cost side.

[B2G]

14. My nephew is a quadriplegic.

I thought maybe this device would be a huge benefit to him. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

He's pretty savvy for 19.

[Dave Starsky]

20. I'm no Luddite, but I completely agree.

George Orwell is spinning at about 7200 RPMs in his grave.

[trixie2]

22. Good one!

I never got the attraction either.

[Lee-Lee]

15. This begs to post the Alexa Jones video

Warning- very NSFW language

https://m.

[Bucky]

16. I think they already did this with Data on Star Trek

Writers should come up with more original stories

[FSogol]

17. Alexa doesn't expect us to talk, she expects us to DIE!

She's laughing from her under-volcano weapons base.

[Liberal In Texas]

19. There's an Alexa programmer laughing his butt off about now. n/t