Amazon has now revealed a brand-new feature for the very popular voice-activated Alexa service that is guaranteed to give you a bad case of the willies. Apparently, this new technology will give users answers in a voice that is known to them, which could include a friend, family member…or someone deceased.
I’m typically very supportive of technological advancements and creativity, especially when it comes to developing tools that can make my life easier, but this is just a bit too creepy for my tastes.
According to Just the News, the new tech is capable of making a high-quality voice recording in less than a minute, instead of hours in an actual recording studio, says a report from Daily Wire.
“The Amazon Alexa feature is now reportedly on over 100 million digital devices such as smartphones and laptops,” Just the News reported.
The new feature was revealed this week in the city of Los Vegas during Amazon’s annual MARS conference, which stands for “Machine learning, Automation, Robots, and Space.”
“Amazon is touting the technology by using the example of having a bedtime story read to a child in the voice of a deceased grandparent,” the report continued.
“We are unquestionably living in the golden era of AI,” Alexa head scientist Rohit Prasad, went on to say, according to the Daily Wire.
This isn’t the first creepy thing that Alexa has done. In fact, it’s just one example of many. For example, back in December 2021, a report was covered by local news outlet KCRA, that discussed an incident where Alexa provided some rather dangerous advice to a 10-year-old child.
A tweet posted by Kristin Livdahl, Alexa told her 10-year-old to take a penny and touch it to an exposed plug socket. This is how the machines kick off their takeover of the world, folks. I say that as a joke…sort of.
“My 10 year old just asked Alexa on our Echo for a challenge and this is what she said,” Livdahl stated in a post on Twitter.
Livdahl then shared a photo of Alexa’s response after her child asked for the challenge.
“Here’s something I found on the web. According to ourcommunitynow.com: The challenge is simple: plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,” Alexa’s response said.
Not long after the post went viral, Amazon responded by stating they had resolved the issue.
“Customer trust is at the center of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers,” a spokesperson for Amazon went on to tell news outlet CNN in a statement.
“As soon as we became aware of this error, we quickly fixed it, and will continue to advance our systems to help prevent similar responses in the future,” the statement continued.
The penny challenged actually started as something that came about on social media platforms like TikTok back in 2020.
It’s kind of sad that folks would actually attempt to do anything with an exposed plug outlet, but this is the world we live in now, unfortunately.
This story syndicated with permission from michael, Author at Trending Politics
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