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A 10-year-old girl and her mother were taught the usefulness of voice assistants after Amazon’s Alexa suggested the girl try the TikTok plug-in challenge. According to the girl’s motherKristin Livdahl, the dangerous suggestion came after her daughter Alexa asked for a challenge.
“We did some physical challenges, like lying down and rolling over with a shot to your foot, from a Phy Ed teacher on YouTube earlier,” Livdahl explained in her. Twitter thread† “She just wanted another one.”
For the (luckily) uninitiated, the plug challenge consists of partially plugging a phone charger into a wall outlet and then dropping a penny onto the exposed prongs. The results can range from a small spark to an all-electric fire.
“I was there yelling, ‘No, Alexa, no!’ as if it were a dog,” Livdahl tweeted† “My daughter says she’s too smart to do something like that.”
Amazon has since removed that particular challenge from Alexa’s database, it confirmed in a statement to the BBC.
“Customer trust is at the heart of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant and useful information to customers,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “Once we became aware of this flaw, we took quick action to fix it.”