Mulitple cases of Alexa, Amazon’s intelligent personal assistant, producing sounds like laughter have been reported, bringing to light its precise capability as a voice interaction device.
Several owners have reported the issue and described the laughter to be ‘witch-like’ and ‘bone-chillingly creepy’. Developed by Amazon, Alexa is powered with capabilities of voice interaction, playing music, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing real-time information. It can also control several smart devices by becoming a home automation system.
After the news went viral, Amazon said: “We’re aware of this and working to fix it.”
Later, the company decided to address the glitch by disabling the command, “Alexa, laugh,” and replacing it with “Alexa, can you laugh?” The company is of the opinion that the alteration in command will address the glitch. In addition, the company is also changing Alexa’s response from simply laughter to “Sure, I can laugh,” followed by laughter.
However, on the basis of the Alexa users’ posts, the device is emanating sounds of laughter without any prior command.
