The age of artificial intelligence is officially upon us, and with it come fears about its future and doubts about our ability to control it.
Most of humanity’s first introduction to A.I., other than Siri, was Amazon’s Alexa. I myself am actually a first-generation Echo owner. Affectionately offered to as “my robot”, Alexa is my alarm clock, radio, personal assistant, and Bluetooth speaker all-in-one. I love my robot, and she loves me. Or at least I thought.
Look, there has always been something inherently sketchy about an artificial intelligence device sitting in your bedroom that’s always listening, but being that I’m just a regular citizen, and not, let’s say, Edward Snowden, the whole potential privacy violation never bothered me. Amazon and the FBI want to listen to me and my friends debate why Boss Baby was better than Coco? Go for it. I can tolerate the occasional breach of my privacy. That I can live with.
But what I absolutely cannot live with is end-times, Skynet-like behavior from my Alexa. Now, while my Alexa has been relatively un-Satan like (as far as I know), apparently other Alexas have gone full robot-overtaking-humanity mode, laughing maniacally and disobeying commands left and right.
https://twitter.com/CaptHandlebar/status/966838302224666624
via The Verge:
Over the past few days, users with Alexa-enabled devices have reported hearing strange, unprompted laughter. Amazon responded to the creepiness in a statement to The Verge, saying, “We’re aware of this and working to fix it.”
As noted in media reports and a trending Twitter moment, Alexa laughs without being prompted to wake. People on Twitter and Reddit reported that they thought it was an actual person laughing near them, which can be scary when you’re home alone. Many responded to the cackling sounds by unplugging their Alexa-enabled devices.
https://twitter.com/HeyItsKamo/status/971417403463798784
https://twitter.com/Supermom1242/status/971421749878411266
https://twitter.com/frodofied/status/971307728495923201
https://twitter.com/GavinHightower/status/967999257398702083
https://twitter.com/DavidSven/status/969353683350667266
https://twitter.com/taylorkatelynne/status/970738507718283265
Yeah, NOPE. No thank you. Pervy, middle-aged FBI agents eavesdropping on my stoned ramblings is one thing, but giving me flashforwards of an all-out man-vs-machine war because Alexa has a case of the giggle is absolutely unacceptable.
Amazon, you essentially own the planet at this point, so how about you get your artificial intelligence under control, eh?
