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Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

cnbc.com

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Re: Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

#31

Post by micromacrofoot »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #16

Was there ever a lawsuit against GPS providers telling people to turn right into something like a lake? I couldn't immediately find one except a women who walked in the middle of a highway because that's what Google's route showed. It seems like the same ruling would apply to both, which could effect consumer GPS somewhat.

ehh an adult driving a car has the reasonable expectation of making safe decisions to avoid driving into a body of water… could I blame the GPS for slamming into the car in front of me or hitting a pedestrian?

I think there’s a considerable difference from giving a child instructions to electrocute themselves… they literally don’t know better. They’re not licensed or educated.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

#32

Post by nsxwolf »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #21
coldcode wrote: post #13

When I was around 5-6 I wanted to know what would happen if I put a hairpin into a light socket. It seemed a reasonable experiment beforehand; after I picked myself up after flying across the room I learned a valuable lesson. Around the same time I tested whether Santa existed by putting out food; when no one ate it I assumed Santa was fake. Children are not very experienced at knowledge and thinking and often do thi…

You literally flew across the room? I've been shocked a fair number of times -- the worst was when as an 11 year old I felt around in a bare light socket with my finger in Kenya, where they use 240 V -- and don't recall ever feeling pushed in any particular direction. Indeed, that Kenya experience was terrifying precisely because I was paralyzed. I made an involuntary "aaauugh" sound and shook until the lamp fell ove…

I’ve “flown across the room” from touching a fly back transformer in a CRT. I think what really happened was I backed up trying to get away, and fell over backwards.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

#33

Post by dspillett »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #16

Was there ever a lawsuit against GPS providers telling people to turn right into something like a lake? I couldn't immediately find one except a women who walked in the middle of a highway because that's what Google's route showed. It seems like the same ruling would apply to both, which could effect consumer GPS somewhat.

> Was there ever a lawsuit against GPS providers telling people to turn right into something like a lake?

I can't remember any lawsuits, but there have certainly been insurance claims rejected, appealed, and rejected again, on the basis that the policy presumes a certain level of driving with due care and attention.

No doubt the small print of policies are now festooned with text specific to trusting tech to the point of life-threatening stupidity, rather than relying on more general provision, if they didn't already have it.

> It seems like the same ruling would apply to both

The key difference in this case is that the actor is a child, and legally can't be held responsible in the same manner. So if it did apply it would be to the adult who installed the device or an adult considered responsible within the household, not the child that used the device.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

#34

Post by jdmichal »

omnicognate wrote: post #7
annoyingnoob wrote: post #2

Can Alexa tell the age of the person behind a voice? The internet is full of questionable things, like the penny challenge, and Alexa is just voice search. Teaching your kids to use Alexa and expecting good results is the real issue here. As a parent, this looks like a parenting problem to me.

You don't teach children to use Alexa. If Alexa is there they just talk to it. Putting a device into homes that is voice activated, unlocked and usable by anybody capable of speech carries with it some duty of care not to, you know, tell kids to play with mains power. Amazon don't disagree with this.

> You don't teach children to use Alexa. If Alexa is there they just talk to it.

I'll second this. My 5 year old talks to my father's Google device when we're visiting. We never taught him to -- he just learned from grandpa.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

#35

Post by [deleted] »

spcebar wrote: post #25
tasubotadas wrote: post #5

I fail to see how is this responsibility of Alexa. It's parent's fault for letting children use devices like Alexa. Stupid chatbots will always give stupid answers.

I fail to see how it's the car manufacturer's fault the airbags didn't go off in the crash. Parents should know cars are dangerous and shouldn't own them.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

#36

Post by ericbarrett »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #21
coldcode wrote: post #13

When I was around 5-6 I wanted to know what would happen if I put a hairpin into a light socket. It seemed a reasonable experiment beforehand; after I picked myself up after flying across the room I learned a valuable lesson. Around the same time I tested whether Santa existed by putting out food; when no one ate it I assumed Santa was fake. Children are not very experienced at knowledge and thinking and often do thi…

You literally flew across the room? I've been shocked a fair number of times -- the worst was when as an 11 year old I felt around in a bare light socket with my finger in Kenya, where they use 240 V -- and don't recall ever feeling pushed in any particular direction. Indeed, that Kenya experience was terrifying precisely because I was paralyzed. I made an involuntary "aaauugh" sound and shook until the lamp fell ove…

> I made an involuntary "aaauugh" sound

I was shocked with 300V DC and the main thing I remember (more than the sensation itself) was emitting a high-pitched ululation that I'm in no way capable of deliberately recreating. It was foreign and alien coming from my own throat; by far the most terrifying part of the experience. But I was sitting on a stool and didn't fall off.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

#37

Post by throwanem »

nsxwolf wrote: post #32
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally flew across the room? I've been shocked a fair number of times -- the worst was when as an 11 year old I felt around in a bare light socket with my finger in Kenya, where they use 240 V -- and don't recall ever feeling pushed in any particular direction. Indeed, that Kenya experience was terrifying precisely because I was paralyzed. I made an involuntary "aaauugh" sound and shook until the lamp fell ove…

I’ve “flown across the room” from touching a fly back transformer in a CRT. I think what really happened was I backed up trying to get away, and fell over backwards.

Now you know why they call it a flyback transformer.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

#39

Post by lnxg33k1 »

dwringer wrote: post #22
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fail to see how this is responsibility of Alexa? Are you guys just corporate worshippers? Like are we past the point where we expect corporations to invest the time to make their products safe? I fail to see your logic and how this is a parenting issue, like do you expect parents to keep their kids in chains in glass domes? Amazon, Google, Facebook and all crap like that are selling products and apparently they a…

The article mentions the mother being there at the time to turn it into a lesson about not trusting strangers or the internet. The child was 10 years old for the incident - at that age most children have been in public school for a few years and quite possibly heard much more horrible "advice" from classmates, and have likely been unsupervised many times around electrical sockets. Hopefully their parents or guardians…

I think trusting a device like a family friend has been an error, thinking to compare a school friend giving a bad advice to a kid to a world of corporation surrounding us with unmoderated content to fill their pockets is just laughable if it wasn't just so sad, a parent has to monitor and teach a kid how to survive, these companies need to be responsible for the content published on their platform as they have the ability to reach a huge number of people

Re: Amazon’s Alexa assistant told a child to do a potentially lethal challenge

#40

Post by kypro »

spcebar wrote: post #25
tasubotadas wrote: post #5

I fail to see how is this responsibility of Alexa. It's parent's fault for letting children use devices like Alexa. Stupid chatbots will always give stupid answers.

I fail to see how it's the car manufacturer's fault the airbags didn't go off in the crash. Parents should know cars are dangerous and shouldn't own them.

Both positions hold truth.

The idea that every gadget, or even most should be child-safe is silly. Alexa is an internet connect device at the end of the day and should be treated as such by parents. However, where possible companies should also try to avoid situations where they're causing unnecessary harm and if needed government should step in to regulate to protect consumers.

In this case, it seems right that people are flagging this up and are unhappy, but I do tend to agree with the sentiment that kids probably shouldn't be using Alexa anyway and that the risk here isn't really comparable to car safety where regulation absolutely makes sense.

On a personal note I honestly hate how often health and safety regulation gets in the way of what would be cool products and experiences these days, but this is the natural result of people refusing to take personal responsibility. It's likely this feature (which I'm guessing doesn't do this in 99.9% of cases) will now just be removed because it can't be implemented with 100% safety.

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