Alexas Are Spontaneously Laughing And Creeping Everyone Out
By Dave Basner
March 8, 2018
Alexa is supposed to be a helpful device - playing people's music, turning lights on and off on command, and answering questions - but some Echoes and Dots are creeping their owners out because they are spontaneously laughing. And it's an evil-sounding laugh too.
They are sharing their nightmarish experiences on Twitter and Reddit and making everyone afraid of the voice-activated assistant.
Lying in bed about to fall asleep when Alexa on my Amazon Echo Dot lets out a very loud and creepy laugh... there’s a good chance I get murdered tonight.
— Gavin Hightower (@GavinHightower) February 26, 2018
Having an office conversation about pretty confidential stuff and Alexa just laughed. Anybody else ever have that?
— David Woodland (@DavidSven) March 1, 2018
It didn't chime as if we had accidentally triggered her to wake. She simply just laughed. It was really creepy.
It was only a matter of time before someone caught the bone-chlling chuckle on video:
@amazonecho alone in the dark kitchen, with no trigger, a sudden creepy laugh emerges and freaks out owners #justwrong. Replay: pic.twitter.com/vR684u8mbN
— anne (@anniebonannieTN) February 21, 2018
Amazon has responded to their creeped out customers explaining in a statement:
"In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase 'Alexa, laugh.' We are changing that phrase to be 'Alexa, can you laugh?' which is less likely to have false positives, and we are disabling the short utterance 'Alexa, laugh.' We are also changing Alexa’s response from simply laughter to 'Sure, I can laugh,' followed by laughter."
So hopefully we've heard the last of evil Alexa.
Photo Credit: Getty