Amazon has rolled out an Alexa update after it suggested that a 10-year-old touch a penny to a phone charger that’s plugged in halfway.
The girl’s mom detailed the incident on Twitter, explaining that she and her daughter were asking Amazon’s voice assistant for challenges to complete. “We were doing some physical challenges, like laying down and rolling over holding a shoe on your foot, from a Phy Ed teacher on YouTube earlier. Bad weather outside. She just wanted another one,” the mom writes.
But Alexa then responded: “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.”
Thankfully, the girl did not take Alexa up on her suggestion. “I was right there and yelled, ‘No, Alexa, no!’ like it was a dog. My daughter says she is too smart to do something like that anyway,” the mom tweeted.
In a statement provided to the BBC, Amazon says: “As soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it.”
The information Alexa pulled from ourcommunitynow.com, meanwhile, is actually a January 2020 article warning parents about a viral “Outlet Challenge” on TikTok. “Fire departments, electricians, and school systems are all trying to get the message out about just how dangerous it is to try this,” it says.
