Alexa tells 10-year-old girl to electrocute herself

[RickMycroft]

Or is it Tay?

Twitter taught Microsoft’s friendly AI chatbot to be a racist asshole in less...

[jra]

Yeah, once the upstairs circuit breaker popped and I went up to find a suspiciously guilty looking older cousin, and my son and a charred screwdriver. I pointed out to them how a circuit breaker does what an it does and why, and told them it would NOT be popping again, and it didn’t.

I didn’t mention I’d done exactly the same thing 40 years before…

[DukeTrout]

@RadioSilence

Of course, stepping on one of these in the dark with bare feet hurts like hell so it’s not all good

How does it rate on the Lego scale?

[anon59592690]

@MattWPBS

conductive parts don’t fully engage until it’s all the way in.

[GyroMagician]

@DukeTrout

How does it rate on the Lego scale?

If a standard Lego block is 10, a British 3 pin plug is around about 263. It hurts!

[west]

Tesla is to blame. DC is safer than AC. With DC, you won’t die shorting the conductors with a penny.
– Edison (more or less)

[anon87143080]

I remember in the 80s and into the 90s if you bought an electric appliance you had to add the plug yourself because there were two standards still in existence.

[MikeR]

They lurk in the dark, waiting to hobble one foot in order that the LEGO bricks can finish the job…

[jerwin]

Interestingly, the challenge was phrased as

"Tell me a challenge to do
Here’s something I found on the web. According to ourcommunitynow.com: The challenge is simple: plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs.

Ourcommunitynow.com has this article

Watch Out, Parents—the Viral 'Outlet Challenge' Has Kids Doing the Unthinkable!

Forget Tide pods and ice water; the latest TikTok craze is the “outlet challenge.” Yes, it’s as stupid as it sounds.

The challenge is simple: plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs. The resulting sparks are supposed to be cool enough to win you instant internet fame.

Assuming that ourcommunitynow has not engaged in damage control and rewritten its archives, the article was written in a fairly common sensationalist mood which Alexa can’t understand.

Will Alexa suggest the tidepod challenge, if it reads an old article that warns against it?

[smulder]

@bobtato

5A at 240VAC, and therefore entirely safe

[manraytrace]

Oh my, Alexa! What are you going to suggest next? Autoerotic Asphyxiation?

[ficuswhisperer]

@anon87143080

in the 80s and into the 90s if you bought an electric appliance you had to add the plug yourself

In the US at least you still need to do this with 220/240V electric appliances because there’s numerous different receptacle types. The last time I replaced my dryer and range I needed to buy 10-30P cords separately. Not expensive or anything but still annoying.