The weather was less than ideal for playing outside, so a mother named Kristin Livdahl and her 10-year-old daughter looked for fun ways to entertain themselves inside. They turned to YouTube to find fun challenges to do. According to Livdahl, “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.”
Her daughter wanted another challenge to do, so she decided to ask Alexa for another challenge. When the 10-year-old asked Alexa for a new challenge, Alexa responded with a very dangerous challenge. She replied, “Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet and then touch a penny to the exposed prongs.”
Thankfully, Livdahl was right next to her daughter when she asked Alexa for a challenge, and the 10-year-old was also smart enough to know that Alexa was giving her bad advice.When she heard the challenge, Livdahl immediately shouted, “No, Alexa, no!” She also shared Alexa’s bad advice on Twitter.
Amazon, the company that makes and sells Alexa, responded to Livdahl’s comment writing, “Hi there. We’re sorry to hear this! Please reach out to us directly via the following link so that we can look into this further with you: amzn.to/3sGEtkT. We hope this helps. -Daragh”
In response to Amazon’s comment, another Twitter user laughed at the response writing, “Hahahahah, NO. You need to escalate this issue internally IMMEDIATELY as a P1, because this is a threat to life and limb. You have all the info you need. Don’t wait for customers to do your job for you.”
According to Amazon, the company fixed the “error” right way. In a statement, the company wrote, “As soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it.”
According to fire officials, the penny challenge Alexa suggested is very dangerous. Anyone who participates in this challenge, which became popular on TikTok, risks starting a fire, blowing out the electricity in an entire building, or even losing their finger, hand or entire arm.