Amazon Apologizes After Alexa Told A Child To Touch A Live Plug With A Penny

Amazon is the e-commerce and tech titan that has Echo products among its smart home devices offerings.

Through the Alexa-powered devices, users can engage with the AI by asking questions through voice interaction, and have the device to playback some music, make to-do lists, set alarms, stream podcasts, see weather forecast, know traffic conditions and many more.

Having a smart home includes having "smart" devices to help with numerous household tasks, and here, Amazon is targeting that market with its Echo products.

Among other things Echo can do, include keeping its users occupied.

But in once case, the product somehow "challenged" a 10-year-old girl to do something that could be fatal.

And that was telling her to touch a coin to the prongs of a half-inserted plug.

The girl's mother, Kristin Livdahl, described the incident on Twitter, adding that:

"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."

And that was when the speaker told the child to partake in a challenge it had "found on the web".

"Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs," Alexa said.

Kristin tweeted that she quickly intervened, yelling: "No, Alexa, no!"

Kristin said that her daughter was "too smart to do something like that."

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The dangerous activity is better known as "the penny challenge."

What began circulating on TikTok and other notable social media platforms since at least 2020, the challenge involves touching a live metal plug when it is half in.

To touch the live metal plug, the challenge requires the person to use something conductive, like another metal.

In Kristin case, is using a penny.

Metals conduct electricity extremely well, and having them anywhere near live electrical sockets or plugs can cause serious electric shocks, fire and other form of damages.

In response to this incident, Amazon apologized and said that it had updated Alexa to prevent the assistant to recommend such activity in the future.

"Customer trust is at the centre of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers," said Amazon in a statement. "As soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it."