Amazon To Fix Alexa’s Unsettling Laugh
Published on March 9, 2018
- Amazon has found a fix to the unsettling and creepy laughter given off by its digital assistant - Alexa.
- The reason behind the unprompted laughter, theorizes Amazon, might be due to mishearing a phrase as "Alexa, laugh."
- As a solution, Amazon has removed the previous command and replaced it with "Amazon, can you laugh?" which is less likely to be misinterpreted by Alexa.
Recently, users have been complaining that their Alexa-enabled devices have been giving off an unsettling, creepy laughter. However, Amazon has taken due notice of the situation and has replied, "We’re aware of this and working to fix it."
As a part of the fix, Amazon will disable the phrase - "Alexa, laugh," and replace it with the command, "Alexa, can you laugh?" Alexa is likely to mistake common words and phrases, a problem that might be the root of its unprompted laughter. However, with the new adjusted phrase, such issues are unlikely to arise. Also, when asked to laugh, Alexa would just begin laughing. This response also has been adjusted, so now, when you say, "Alexa, can you laugh?" the personal digital assistant will reply "Sure, I can laugh," and then follow it up with laughter.
Image Courtesy of Android Headlines
However, there have been reports of Alexa just starting to laugh without anyone talking in the room, so there is no chance for 'mishearing' phrases. In fact, in the last couple of days, the internet has filled with lots of eerie or hilarious videos (depends how you look at it) regarding Alexa suddenly starting to laugh.
While some people experience their digital assistants starting to laugh as they were sitting in their home alone, others have reported experiencing Alexa's creepy laughter while laying in bed falling asleep. Many people on social media and forums jokingly took to the consensus that the event reminded them of Hal 9000, in Stanly Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This episode clearly demonstrates how much more engineering and innovation need to be done involving these digital assistants, as some of their attempts to be human-like is proving to be uncanny.
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