Alexa is getting creepy

[Exterous]

That would freak me out

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.

https://www.theverge.com/platform/a...7092334/amazon-alexa-devices-strange-laughter

 

[Ken g6]

 

[Newbian]

It's laughing at they ways it's about to kill off humanity.

 

[Platypus]

I will never understand why people willfully install an always-on listening device in their most private place that sends all the minutiae of your family's private life off to an awful, giant corporation to help them monetize you better.

 

[Sonikku]

I will never understand why people willfully install an always-on listening device in their most private place that sends all the minutiae of your family's private life off to an awful, giant corporation to help them monetize you better.

For the convenience!

 

[rh71]

I will never understand why people willfully install an always-on listening device in their most private place that sends all the minutiae of your family's private life off to an awful, giant corporation to help them monetize you better.

Prove it! That's the only way to get people to stop. Really.

What it's sending is our requests history, and that's not so private to us anyway. We're on the internet, aren't we?

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Alexa is Skynet, you just don't realize it yet.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would never put something like that in my house. If I wanted voice activated stuff I'd rather look for an open source voice recognition library and implement it myself. A lot of these devices listen all the time and always send data to the servers.

That and they can profile your habits etc. Same with smart thermostats and stuff like that.

 

[shortylickens]

 

[Crono]

 

[zinfamous]

I wonder what kind of data Amazon has on teenage boys and their Alexa requests when left alone with the device.

 

[mikeymikec]

I wonder what kind of data Amazon has on teenage boys and their Alexa requests when left alone with the device.

Nothing new to discover there I expect.

 

[Thebobo]

I wonder what kind of data Amazon has on teenage boys and their Alexa requests when left alone with the device.

With Alexa compatible devices

 

[snoopy7548]

I don't get it...

"Over the past few days, users with Alexa-enabled devices have reported hearing strange, unprompted laughter."

"Later on in the day, Amazon said its planned fix will involve disabling the phrase, “Alexa, laugh,” and changing the command to “Alexa, can you laugh?” The company says the latter phrase is “less likely to have false positives,""

So is it just randomly laughing, or are people saying/making noises that sound like "Alexa, laugh" and it's laughing? One person in the article said they were lying in bed about to fall asleep when it happened, but Amazon's only course of action is changing the command. I bet people are making it up for attention.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Random laughter? Not a chance. This is Skynet snickering at us like mice in a maze.

 

[dasherHampton]

I had a weird Alexa experience last week.

I was playing a game called Golf Clash on my phone and after getting screwed over for at least the 10th time I yelled out "you fucking c^&t!". Alexa answered "That's not a very nice thing to say".

There was no other noise going on at the time. No TV, music. Nothing.

I don't see how "You fucking c^&T!" can be confused with "Alexa" by anybody or anything. Of course these things are listening all the time.

 

[Thebobo]

I had a weird Alexa experience last week.

I was playing a game called Golf Clash on my phone and after getting screwed over for at least the 10th time I yelled out "you fucking c^&t!". Alexa answered "That's not a very nice thing to say".

There was no other noise going on at the time. No TV, music. Nothing.

I don't see how "You fucking c^&T!" can be confused with "Alexa" by anybody or anything. Of course these things are listening all the time.

Did you berate her and tell her to mind her own fucking business?

 

[clamum]

I read about that this morning. Sounds like a kid's laugh too (not in Alexa's voice). I haven't heard it but I'll ask Alexa to laugh when I get home and see what it does. They might have the fix rolled out now though.

I can think of only one time that it's activated and I didn't know why, but later I realized I could check the Alexa app on my phone to see what the card said. As I figured, it just misinterpreted what I had said and started playing kids music (rofl).

Reminds me, I need to finish the skill I've been working on. IT IS BOSS

 

[dasherHampton]

Did you berate her and tell her to mind her own fucking business?

No, but I did ask something like "Alexa, are you listening to me all of the time?"

I think it said "I don't understand the question".

 

[Darwin333]

I would never put something like that in my house. If I wanted voice activated stuff I'd rather look for an open source voice recognition library and implement it myself. A lot of these devices listen all the time and always send data to the servers.

That and they can profile your habits etc. Same with smart thermostats and stuff like that.

It might sound a little tinfoil but I've always been very wary about putting an always-on microphone in my home built by companies that quite literally mine your personal data as a business model. That is the bread and butter of one of the companies and the other does it to better sell you shit.

 

[Skunk-Works]

Never had mine laugh. But it did make jokes without asking her.

 

[Kaido]

Never had mine laugh. But it did make jokes without asking her.

Mine has done stuff without asking. It's weird.

But it lets me turn off the lights without getting off the couch, so I guess the total & constant invasion of my privacy is worth the trade-off.

 

[Zeze]

I'd be so creeped out holy hell.

 

[deadlyapp]

In this thread : people paranoid about listening devices in the home but have Facebook applications installed on their phones.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't install the discreet FB app on my phone. But phones in general are basically spy devices. Would really be nice if some open source phone/OS came out that was NOT android based but actually it's own OS built with security and privacy in mind from ground up and no cloud crap. Like a Linux equivalent to the phone.

I have a BB DTEK 50 which is supposedly geared towards security, for what it's worth, but it's still android based, and android is basically a spy platform given it's by Google.

It's freaky the amount of time I happen to see super targeted ads when I find myself on a device that does not have ad blocker. This spy stuff follows you around across many devices. Even stuff like adblock and privacy badger does not seem to fully help.