Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/03/amazon-alexa-gone-wild.html
…
3 Likes
Josh Marshall is having a tough week!
4 Likes
Never let your toddler have access to a device that knows your browser history.
34 Likes
I think that’s my nephew…
EDIT
Nope, just a doppleganger o_O
Also, original:
EDIT2:
This kid looks exactly like my nephew did a half a year ago…
6 Likes
Yes, by all means, wildly overreact so that this moment will be burned into your child’s memory forever. Perhaps Amazon will pay for his future therapy.
14 Likes
How did this thing interpret “Play ‘Twinkle Twinkle’” as “station for porn”?
Also, what in the world is “PUSSY ANAL DILDO RAIN DOWN ON…” Are these words thrown together by a Markov chain?
5 Likes
I was expecting crazy racist shit after “play digger digger,” no idea how porn came from it though.
13 Likes
His words sounded a bit like “Dicker Dicker” to me, maybe even “Dick Dicker.” Whoooops!
8 Likes
To be fair I am a human and have no idea what he said.
19 Likes
What I heard was “Rajah, play ‘Tickle Tickle’”. I interpreted Tickle Tickle to mean Twinkle Twinkle, and Rajah I guess is Alexa. Digger Digger isn’t that far off.
Trying to figure out how YouTube Closed Captioning interpreted that, but the CC is apparently not working. It’s getting better over time, but when it’s wrong, oh boy is it ever wrong…
1 Like
I heard "Play Tuca Tuca"
6 Likes
Dirk Diggler?
8 Likes
fake - someone Simon Says-ed with the remote - handy trick to use on those stupid ignorant children
In the late 90’s, I was working at a tech company. I frequently hung out with the tech support people since they were more fun than the engineering group I was in. One of the guys was painfully gullible. One day he left is computer unlocked so the other guys installed a remote control plug-in that allowed someone at a different work station to control his Win Amp. Later they told the guy that Win Amp now took voice commands. One guy said: Win Amp Play and the other guy remotely hit play. They did several examples showing it “worked” quite well. Then they went back to their cubes. For the rest of the day we could all hear the gullible guy shouting commands at his PC. He never considered that his PC didn’t even have a microphone.
12 Likes
Oh, that’s what the kid was saying. I was trying to figure out what “dicka dicka” was.
Really, it’s amazing that Alexa could get anything from that. “Laksa, play dicka dicka” had me confused. I thought maybe there was some cartoon or song called something vaguely like dikka-dikka, but that seemed unlikely…
I’m getting, “play taker play kicker” and “we can you talk” is its interpretation of the kid’s attempt at “Alexa.” It has no problem understanding Alexa’s saucy talk, on the other hand.
5 Likes
I’ve never used Alexa. Does one have to say “Alexa” before it does anything, and does Alexa have to be able to tell with confidence what the user is saying? It sounds to me like the kid is saying Rajah,* and I wouldn’t know it was supposed to be Alexa if I didn’t already know. Also, what happens if the speech is garbled, or if the request makes no sense, or both?**
Indeed.
*as in, it sounded very strongly to me like Rajah and not like any other word. “Twinkle Twinkle” could just have easily been “Tickle Tickle” but that first word was definitely Rajah.
**
Alexa, greeble whoozie m’fuhghuh thghahghhnhnhn whhhhhh…
Administering Heimlich Maneuver...
5 Likes
Yes you have to say Alexa first, but you can change it to Echo or Amazon. Analogous to Hey Siri or whatever Google wants you to say.
1 Like
Hmm. Maybe that first word wasn’t Alexa.
1 Like
It won’t process the audio buffer it’s presumably keeping at all times, unless you preface a phrase with Alexa. I could be wrong about how it works, and that it only really starts to “listen” after you say Alexa, but something tells me it’s always listening. I’m sure the EULA says something about this but who reads those stupid things.
2 Likes
Derka derka?
6 Likes
