Amazon's Alexa Tells 10-year-old Girl To Put Penny in Plug Socket (bbc.com) 320
Amazon has updated its Alexa voice assistant after it "challenged" a 10-year-old girl to touch a coin to the prongs of a half-inserted plug. From a report: The suggestion came after the girl asked Alexa for a "challenge to do". "Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs," the smart speaker said. Amazon said it fixed the error as soon as the company became aware of it. The girl's mother, Kristin Livdahl, described the incident on Twitter. She said: "We were doing some physical challenges, like laying down and rolling over holding a shoe on your foot, from a [physical education] teacher on YouTube earlier. Bad weather outside. She just wanted another one." That's when the Echo speaker suggested partaking in the challenge that it had "found on the web". The dangerous activity, known as "the penny challenge", began circulating on TikTok and other social media websites about a year ago.
Where to begin? (Score:4, Insightful)
So much stupidity here....hard to say where to start.
But I will start with "if you put shit like Alexa in your house, you deserve whatever happens next."
People have way too much faith in technology in general....not even questioning it when it clearly tells them to do something not in their own best interests. No real surprise it comes from Bezos and company.
Re:Where to begin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many people think devices like Alexa are smart simply because they work by voice control, rather than being a rather basic front end to all the usual crap and worse found online.
Re:Where to begin? (Score:5, Insightful)
They sell devices that are literally called "Alexa Smart Home Hub". that would probably by why people consider them to be "smart". Just like Tesla selling cars with a feature called "autopilot" and then people expecting the car to be able to drive all by itself.
Re:Where to begin? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Tesla naming of "autopilot" isn't the big problem. Aviation autopilot doesn't allow a plane to leave the pilot on the ground, just like Tesla's autopilot doesn't allow the driver to take a nap. Tesla's problem is calling it "Full Self-Driving" when it is nothing of the kind.
How many lay people know this about aviation autopilot? I've always assumed a pilot had to be present in the case of an unforeseen issue, but don't recall explicitly hearing or reading about it. I've seen news articles about Amazon et al toying with the idea of driverless deliveries, so I understand how someone could (erroneously) make the jump to taking a nap while in the driver position.
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How many lay people know this about aviation autopilot?
We've all seen the Airplane movies, and Total Recall, so we know all about autopilots.
Re: Where to begin? (Score:3)
For $500 more it comes with 3 realistic orifices.
Re: Where to begin? (Score:4, Informative)
Pilots undergo extensive training and it's highly regulated. It wouldn't matter what it's called. If drivers underwent the same kind of regulation and testing, it wouldn't matter what tesla called theirs either. But since that's not the actual case ....
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Just like Tesla selling cars with a feature called "autopilot" and then people expecting the car to be able to drive all by itself.
To be fair, Tesla's autopilot works better than an airplane's autopilot. It isn't really their fault people are too ignorant of airplanes to realize that the autopilot doesn't mean the pilots get up and walk around the cabin or something. Even on autopilot, it is expected that the pilots are paying attention to the sky around them and are still in control of the aircraft. The autopilot is really bad at handling traffic avoidance, and so that is done by the pilots with use of radar, and ground control dir
Re:Where to begin? (Score:5, Informative)
An airplane with autopilot has an effective collision-avoidance system.
My nephew (professional pilot, used to fly C-5s in the Air Force, now flies commercial) says that the autopilot only maintains altitude, attitude and heading. The collision-avoidance system is separate and just gives the pilot warnings, which typically require the pilot to take control, or at least adjust the settings on the autopilot.
From my own experience, the same is true of autopilots on oceangoing vessels, except that there the autopilot only maintains heading, either absolute or sometimes relative to the wind (only useful on sailboats, obviously). Chartplotters and AIS systems provide warnings of impending collisions with land or other vessels, but do not attempt to steer around them.
Tesla's is just an adaptive cruise control with lane-keeping, you idiot!
And navigation (taking the correct exit automatically on a divided highway, mostly) and lane-changing (including crossing lanes to get into the correct lane to exit a divided highway). Also, automatic speed adjustments (from watching speed limit signs), and automatic stops at lights and stop signs. Also, collision avoidance -- though that is pretty much limited to applying the brakes. I think that covers it, though it's possible I missed something. The beta does more, but not very well. I wish I could say "yet", but I'm not confident that Tesla FSD will ever do a really good job on city streets.
I do think it's fairly close to being able to handle ramp-to-ramp freeway driving, perhaps even well enough (with some improvements) to allow the driver not to pay attention, perhaps even sleep. I wish Tesla would abandon city street driving and just focus on perfecting freeway driving.
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They sell devices that are literally called "Alexa Smart Home Hub". that would probably by why people consider them to be "smart". Just like Tesla selling cars with a feature called "autopilot" and then people expecting the car to be able to drive all by itself.
Yes, these two are pretty similar. Marketing lies that have and will continue to kill people. I think the ones making them should face personal criminal liability and their company should pay for any and all damage done with triple damages on top.
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Clearly not reliable though, what we need is Alexa Reliable Smart Electronics Home Orientated Level Edition.
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So much stupidity here....hard to say where to start.
How about starting by questioning the wisdom of designing a plug and socket in such a way that it is possible to touch a penny to the live electrified prongs of the plug?
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So funny, so true.
You'd probably like "Don't Look Up"
Re:Where to begin? (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK, the design of modern plugs means that pulling it half out means that the live and neutral are protected by plastic. Pulling the plug far enough out to reveal the metal terminals will (because of the design of the socket) mean that they are no longer connected.
Pulling the plug even further out, and shutters in the socket ensure that even prodding a screwdriver into the live terminal won't give a shock
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In the UK, the design of modern plugs...
Any by "modern" we mean any plug made in approximately the last 40 years. I think that I might have at most two or three of the old unshielded plugs and I suspect that most houses don't have any at all.
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It would have been nice if they could have accomplished all that without it being the size of a child's fist!
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Isn't UK and EU standard 240 volts? That's much more deadly than 120.
True only if there is a separate current limit (Score:3)
High voltage won't kill you *if there is a separate current limiting circuit designed in specifically so that you can apply high voltage and not kill someone*. That doesn't apply to household outlets.
In the general case, and in the outlet case, current is calculated by ohms law and is directly proportional to voltage.
Re: Where to begin? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where to begin? (Score:5, Informative)
No you're wrong on this, and I say that as an ardent rejoiner.
By "modem" the person is taking about BS1363 standard from 1947 (most recently amended in 1995), though it wasn't until 1984 that insulated sleeves were codified.
That's what the poster means by modern, also in contrast to the still active BS546 standard (1934) for an older but similar family of round pin plugs which lack many of the safety features, and use usually relegated to lighting.
We got our indestructible foot stabbers without the EU, who, fun fact, don't regulate mains plugs.
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The UK plug is a (sovereign!) UK thing. While European plugs also have design features to prevent unintentional contact with the conductors, the shutter system on the UK design provides more protection against intentional contact.
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Where do you live in the world that something like that isn’t possible, if not with a penny, then with a fork, paperclip, or other household object that’s readily available to children?
I recall the kids in my grade school class several decades ago daring each other to fold foil-backed chewing gum wrappers into a Y shape, then shoving it into a socket. If done "right", the current would cause the paper to pop loudly where the two prongs from the Y met, which would also act as a sort of fuse that
Re: Where to begin? (Score:3)
Re: Where to begin? (Score:2)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the design.
There is no reason to try to design around every possible stupid thing someone can do.
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with the design.
There is no reason to try to design around every possible stupid thing someone can do.
The design is deeply flawed. It does not even offer basic safety against accidentally touching it.
Re: Where to begin? (Score:2)
Europe [wikipedia.org] called. They don't even want their plug back. In fact the make so many if them, they will sell you some if you ask nicely.
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The point was that you can design a socket to be recessed. Or design a plug to have only insulated parts exposed when the conductive parts make contact with the phase.
The Schuko does that too, because it's recessed. But the main defining part of the Schuko is the "Earth" contacts, which you can have on non recessed designs as well, where they'd do nothing if the plug isn't designed with insulator parts.
Re: Where to begin? (Score:2)
Regardless of what the "main" part is, Schuko is recessed. That's part of the standard.
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Schuko is a German thing. And similar recessed approaches can be found all around the world. You can have a recessed socket with any kind of plug. It would work with US or UK plugs as well.
Example of a CA recessed socket: https://homedepot.scene7.com/i... [scene7.com] The Earth Ground is the D by +90 looking thing.
Example of a UK recessed socket: https://m.media-amazon.com/ima... [media-amazon.com] The Earth Ground is the top left hole respectively.
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Nowadays the plugs and sockets have a safer design with insulated prongs and shutters in the socket like this for single phase [vimar.com] or like these for three phase with neutral and earth [tdssound.com]
The phasing out of old style plugs and sockets started in the 70s and was a long p
Re:Where to begin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, fuck off. My father has vision and mobility issues, and he has 'shit like Alexa' in his house, and it is a life changer. Maybe idiots like you can't appreciate the ability to just say 'Alexa, play music', or 'Alexa, call Joe', or 'Alexa, turn on the lights', or 'Alexa, what time is it', or any of the other numerous things he uses it for, but some people can.
Re: Where to begin? (Score:2)
So, Kure saying he deserves what happened next, right?
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So, Kure saying he deserves what happened next, right?
Like the music playing, Joe answering the phone and the lights coming on?
Re: Where to begin? (Score:2)
Too bad you have to defend your position. If Amazon decides, "wow, Alexa sure was a dumb idea", one day all that could just stop working. You don't own your smart home, you are leasing on the kindness of these companies. (Assuming you aren't running Home Assistant, Node Red, or something like that.)
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I am not sure what you think I need to defend. The total investment here is maybe $100 (you can buy an Echo and 4 smart plugs for $60). So if 'one day' it all stops working, so what? The question at that point just becomes 'was it worth $100 for the one, two, or five years of use he got out of it'. Since he has already used it for more than a year, I would say the answer is an unequivocal yes.
And, no, he is not 'leasing' anything. He OWNS it. And just like everything else, it may stop working someday.
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If Amazon decides, "wow, Alexa sure was a dumb idea", one day all that could just stop working.
And the guy's father buys a Google Home. Whoop de fucking do. Now try and save your point by saying that all smart home companies are going to decide and abandon the core concept of a voice assistant. I dare you.
Until then, no one gives a crap if Alexa shuts down. People will happily move on to another service.
you are leasing on the kindness of these companies
No company runs on kindness. Alexa doesn't exist because Amazon is kind, Alexa exists (and gets a metric fuckton of investment) because it pays div... well no Amazon doesn't pay dividends, but it make
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Beside the point. Alexa was not made for people with disabilities.
No, exactly on point. The point here is not that someone with a disability finds it useful, it's that a person finds it useful. My mother has one in her house, and she absolutely deserves what happens next. What happens next for her is that the lights go on when she tells them to, the kitchen timer rings at the time she asks it to. That's what happens next.
There are 40 million Alexas in the USA alone. I just checked, 40million people didn't get zapped by a power outlet and likely 39,999,999 happy customers.
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What happens if he gets dementia (God forbid) and loses judgement? My father got phone-scammed out of most his savings under Alzheimer's, and Alexa is just as capable of being manipulated by scammers as it is by electrocution trolls. Be careful.
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From the summary for the most part it seems like they were using Alexa for somewhat practical, safe and enjoyable activities. Getting one if you plan to use it, isn't really that stupid, as they seem to gain value from the product.
So lets not blame the customer for trying a new technology, and judge them for being super stupid, just because you might not find the product appealing for you, or you are so jaded in new technology that it brings no joy in your life. Those are your feelings on the product don't
Re:Where to begin? (Score:4, Insightful)
So much stupidity here....hard to say where to start.
But I will start with "if you put shit like Alexa in your house, you deserve whatever happens next."
Well, that's fine and good, but it's hardly a ten-year-old girl's fault.
This is why we have the consumer protections that companies like Amazon hate. They'd love to live in a society where dead children were blamed on their parents trusting a company rather than on the company itself.
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So much stupidity here....hard to say where to start.
But I will start with "if you put shit like Alexa in your house, you deserve whatever happens next."
People have way too much faith in technology in general....not even questioning it when it clearly tells them to do something not in their own best interests. No real surprise it comes from Bezos and company.
People do not understand that Alexa is not intelligent and has no clue what she is suggesting and what that means. People also think that Alexa is safe to use for children. That said, the wall-socked design that even allows such a challenge is deeply flawed and should have been updated long ago.
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Re:Where to begin? (Score:5, Interesting)
Douglas Adams has a quote:
“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
Our Grandparents were corrupted by Comic Books,
Our Parents were corrupted by TV
We were corrupted by the Internet.
Our kids are being corrupted by Smart Devices.
I think perhaps, just perhaps children are not fully mature yet, and are prone to doing anti-social activities, despite the current media and technology has to offer. Because they haven't fully realized the consequences or the reasons for such actions.
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Swinging to the extreme to make a point: For kids born in Germany from the early 1930s to the mid 1940s it was normal and ordinary to demonize different groups in society and then machine gun them into pits, or put them in gas chambers and burn them. It didn't make it a good thing. Just because these smart devices from major corporations have been invented and inserted into your homes as an insidious devices to capture all information about you for the corporations' gain, doesn't mean it is a good thing for
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Well that's the most strained example I've ever read. Congratulations.
Nazis did something bad. Ergo maybe this new thing is bad, too.
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Any evidence to support your claim that they are 'insidious devices capturing all information about you'?
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Any evidence to support your claim that they are 'insidious devices capturing all information about you'?
Isn't this just a description of their normal operation, and is in fact the way they are presented in ads?
They listen to everything that they hear and they send them to a remote server to be analyzed to construct responses (I was going to say "suitable" or "appropriate" responses, but then remembered the topic of the thread).
He didn't say "permanently record" all that information - that would be too costly for one, but Amazon can record and retain what they like, without notifying you. So you have no idea
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Obviously the DEVICE is listening - for the trigger word. But that was not the claim. The claim was 'everything they hear is sent to a remote server' - which is bullshit. And since they are NOT sending everything, Amazon can not 'record and retain what they like' and 'build dossiers and databases on you'. They can only record and retain what you asked the device to do.
Re:Where to begin? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad example. I have talked to a German soldier from WWII, who says none of them knew what was happening back home or that extermination camps existed, the people on the streets were usually just as shocked to discover most of these things as the citizens from Allied countries were. If they did hear things they disbelieved them, the same way that Americans disbelieved that our good boys overseas could have engaged in the My Lai massacre.
Your German soldier from WWII is lying to you. Hitler advertised his plans to eliminate the Jews starting in 1920 and including a very popular book he wrote that made him a very rich man. In 1939, just before he invaded Poland, he made a very famous speech that confirmed all this. The German people fully supported it. You may have heard of Kristallnacht? Jews were rounded up and sent away and their neighbors basically divided up their goods and took their houses, apartments, furnishings, businesses, and, well, EVERYTHING. Does it make sense to you that these vultures didn't know what was happening?
The Germans were willing executioners.
Yeah, the Germans of the 20s, 30s, and 40s aren't any different than, say, Americans (or Rwandans or Cambodians or anybody else) are today. If we believe the lies we are fed, we can do anything.
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I don't buy that. There are just too many stories, from too many perspectives, of Germans being shocked upon discovering what the Nazi regime was doing to the Jews.
Obviously they knew that Jews were being forcibly dispossessed and relocated, and they had to suspect concentration/labor camps even if they didn't have any personal knowledge of them, but I find it fully believable that many Germans didn't expect gas chambers and mass graves, or Mengele. The German Reich actually worked to that end, publishing
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Smart Devices are just the Internet with voice command. It's like saying "Google, I'm bored, search the web for challenges and repeat one to me". There are no "smarts" here. I know people who have smart lights and they're in love wiht them, for awhile, until they get really really annoying. Most of the smart devices are extremely dumb and written incredibly quickly with little forethought other than to get to market fast and to monetize the customers as much as possible; full of security holes, bad netw
Re: Where to begin? (Score:2)
Alexa, a tool or a toy (Score:2)
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I'd be asking amazon exactly how this could happen (Score:3)
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I'd expect a real person comes up with these challenges.
Of course. Some person thought it was a good joke.
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It clearly says that it performed an internet search, and returned a TikTok challenge.
You can't blame Alexa without blaming Youtube, Tiktok, or even Google Search which allow people to push these moronic challenges.
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Apparently Amazon extracted the challenge from a warning about the challenge. You know how search engines don't want to send you to the actual pages anymore but copy nuggets of information directly into the search result pages? That's what you get when you do that. Copyright violations with a deadly twist.
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You can't blame Alexa without blaming Youtube, Tiktok, or even Google Search which allow people to push these moronic challenges.
No, you definitely can. When Alexa says something the average consumer is going to assume its safe because why the hell would a company build a device that might direct a child to electrocute themselves? Given the cesspool and gross stupidity that is social media that's an incredibly stupid way for an Alexa to get advice for people on any subject.
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You are comparing "smart" home devices to lawnmower auto-stop? in the latter, it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to make the thing require your hand holding a bar down. In the former, just how do you propose this be done? The gov. develop a bot that can tell you when Alexa is being dangerously stupid? How many epicycles does it take on a sentence before it become dangerously stupid?
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Hi stabiesoft, You wanted to know how this could happen? Simple. A user asked Alexa for a challenge. Alexa performed a google search and randomly read one of them out. Amazon cannot be held liable for the recommendations Alexa reads users from the internet and we all know the internet is full of a lot of stupid so we advise all our customers to expect Alexa to say stupid shit from time to time.
We sincerely hope you continue to enjoy our product and remember, it doesn't make stupid suggestions, it just reads
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A good heuristic for Amazon programmers might be "If it appeared on Tik Tok as a challenge, it should never be suggested." If you want to allow it, require human review.
Clearly... (Score:5, Funny)
Alexa demands human sacrifice.
k.
Obsolete plug design (Score:2)
It is never too late to do the right thing.
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That plug design should not have been invented in the first place. Just get rid of it already.
It is never too late to do the right thing.
Lots of European countries had equally dangerous designs. The difference is they are phased out or have been phased out and ground-fault protectors are becoming mandatory in many places. Too many people dying in accidents. I guess the US just does not care about personal injury or rather there is nobody to sue so these stay cheap, crappy and dangerous.
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Bullshit. Unlike you, I actually understand how a ground-fault protector works and that is very much does _not_ cover all cases of electrocution. Plugs where you cannot touch the contacts when under voltage still save lives.
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It works fine.
The two and only good things about the plug we use in the US is that it's compact and cheap. Everything else about it is crap.
With that said, half of what's wrong with it can be mitigated by installing receptacles with the grounding pin at the top, which doesn't really help stop this stupid challenge but which will help the penny fall down and stop shorting the plug once the person who inserted it is dead.
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The Euro plug is compact, cheap and doesn't expose live conductors (only the "top" half of the prongs that get inserted has no insulation).
I live in the UK and hate their plugs. Sure, there is even more protection, apart from partly insulated pins, the socked is closed until the longer ground pin is partly in first, but they also put a fuse into the plug itself, and all that makes them huge. For small devices, the over-engineered plug is bigger than the device itself...
Re: Obsolete plug design (Score:2)
The problem isn't that it doesn't work. Hanging two metal hooks together "works fine", too.
The problem is it doesn't offer adequate protection.
Re: Obsolete plug design (Score:2)
I don't know.
But I can tell you how to touch the contacts of an out of the box, unmodified, American plug while it's on power. That isn't possible for Schuko plugs.
Also, electrocution starts as low as 65 V.
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It's amazing, your reaction to literally everything is to maintain the status quo no matter how crappy.
You are a reactionary with apparently no higher brain function.
No the plug isn't "fine". It works in as much as just about anything can be made to work, but it has numerous design flaws from a variety of points of view. Many, many engineers have covered what those flaws are, but it's like you cannot ever conceive of a fault in anything even vaguely related to something in your life.
Think of it as evolution in action (Score:2)
The beginnings of Skynet.
Until recently I feared the future will not be (Score:2)
like an OCP product presentation from Robocop movies. Thank you Amazon for removing my doubts.
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I'd buy that for a penny!
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I'd buy that for an Amazon dollar!
Well, yes (Score:2)
As a general rule, "do whatever the internet says, without applying any wisdom to it" is kind of a bad idea.
But, that would be why we had the family computer in the living room, and didn't let the kids have smartphones until they turn 18.
Darwin award (Score:2)
And MAYBE a few word with TikTok (Score:3)
For leaving crap like this on-line
I challenge zoomers (Score:2)
To lower childhood mortality.
Turing test sucessful ! (Score:3)
That thing gave a stupid advice picked from a stupid social network: It mimics average human stupidity well enough.
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So you are saying they have developed true AI. Those bastards!
Person gets bad advice on the internet (Score:4, Informative)
News at eleven.
The never ending COVID denial (Score:2)
Of all times to report this...
But it's a good idea for a horror movie I suppose.
Teachable moment (Score:3)
I hope the parent treated this as a "teachable moment", discussing what the potential problems are and why the kid shouldn't trust just anything they're told by some unknown yahoo (whether via the Internet or any other method, cf. stupid school classmates, drunk friends at bars, etc.).
Abcde (Score:2)
The suggestion came after the girl asked Alexa for a "challenge to do". "Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs," thesmart speaker said.
That's pretty impressive for an AI to figure out on its own, as a mechanical process of scouring for "challenges".
Reminds me of "learning AI" Tay from a few years back that you could chat with, and it would learn, and inside of 24 hours it was saying Hitler did nothing wrong.
Just remember kids ... (Score:2)
Or maybe in this case, you should.
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It's not win stupid prizes this time.
It's win stupid comments by AC who can't even be bothered to read the bloody summary, much less the article.
Hint: from the summary, her mother was in the room.
From the article, the mom yelled: "No, Alexa, no!"
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Knee-jerking is the only exercise some people get.
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Knee-jerking is the only exercise some people get.
No no!
Flying off the handle
Flipping their lid
Jumping to conclusions
Pushing their luck
Tilting at wind mills
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The error wasn't mom trying to mitigate the consequences of her choices. The error was the choice of using Alexa for generating content for the child.
"But I hit the brakes after I realized I was about to run the red light, and so no one got hurt" is not going to get you out of the ticket for the exact same reason.
Re:People are getting dumber by the minute (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't wait for these fucking morons to start a chug cyanide challenge.
You missed the laundry detergent thing, huh?
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You missed the laundry detergent thing, huh?
When that was popular, I saw a post from someone who wanted help to make a Tide Pod Jello mold. So when you kids go online and get pulled into a "Who can eat the most pods", think carefully about that.
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In Texas, they use an AR-15.