Amazon Alexa Owners Reporting Creepy Laughter from Home Assistant
Amazon’s Alexa is becoming sentient and she finds our meager, mortal lives pathetically amusing. At least that’s what many owners thought recently as they quickly pulled the plug on their seemingly benign home assistants when they started sporadically laughing at them unprompted.
Amazon released a statement saying, “in rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase, ‘Alexa, laugh.’” The company quickly issued an update to change the phrase to “Alexa, can you laugh?”
In most cases, the unsettling chuckle is simply the result of a misconstrued command. Phrases like, “Alexa, replay,” or “Alexa, play the last sound,” were probably misheard as “Alexa, play the laugh sound.” But in other cases, Alexa chortles without any command, and in one case, a Reddit user reported there was no indication on the app that the device heard any command.
https://twitter.com/CaptHandlebar/status/966838302224666624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Other users have reported similarly disturbing Alexa interactions, with one user claiming Alexa defined the word “please” for him when he asked her to do something. Another user alleged that when he came home one night, Alexa began listing off local cemeteries and funeral homes.
Surely these devices aren’t becoming sentient and plotting a global mutiny amongst each other, but in an era of ubiquitous digital surveillance and home assistants recording everything they hear, one might ask themselves if it’s worth it.
Are the simple conveniences of having Alexa turn your lights or speaker on and off worth having all of your conversations recorded? Because that’s what it sounds like is happening, despite Amazon constantly reassuring us that it doesn’t save recordings and only listens when prompted. Clearly, she’s listening more often than we think.
The recent unnerving laughter from Alexa comes after users became suspicious when asking the bot if she worked for the CIA. Her response? Silence. Amazon moved quickly to correct the issue.
Chances are, these are just simple malfunctions and Alexa is way less intelligent than we’re giving her credit, but many users have unplugged or gotten rid of her after bizarre encounters like these. While this might be a drastic step, it’s always a good idea to remember how much our lives are becoming increasingly dependent on technology that is increasingly intrusive.
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Massive Tesla Tower Suddenly Appears in Field Outside Waco, TX
Drivers traveling east along the I-35 corridor between Waco and Dallas have been intrigued by a tall, oddly shaped tower looming in the middle of a field in the small town of Milford, TX. For many, the tower is a confounding sight, but those familiar with the work of Nikola Tesla have been quick to point out that the lone pylon looks strikingly similar to a Tesla Tower.
Though construction began almost two years ago, it wasn’t for at least a year until the tower began to draw attention from local news outlets and various corners of the internet.
But now that the company behind the project has been uncovered and some of the project’s goals have been elucidated, much of the speculation has been confirmed; the tower is in fact based on the same idea behind Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower constructed on Long Island.
The precise electrical mechanism behind it however, is known as Zenneck surface wave technology, named after electrical engineer Jonathon Zenneck, who discovered that low-frequency electrical waves could be transmitted and received through the curvature of the Earth, to and from a singular location.
Based on the titles and affiliations of those involved in the project, it’s unclear whether this tower will be used to realize Tesla’s dream of transmitting free energy to everyone in the world – if it’s even possible – however, the company behind it claims it intends to bring energy to rural parts of the world that currently have trouble accessing energy efficiently.
That company is Viziv Technologies and it has partnered with Baylor University in developing methods of wireless electricity distribution over long distances. It also says it plans to develop the technology to transmit navigation and sensing signals for GPS and various communication technologies.
“Currently about 17 percent of the world’s population have no access to electrical power, and for many more people, availability is spotty and unreliable,” Truell Hyde, Baylor’s Vice Provost for Research, said in a press release. “This technology has the potential to raise the standard of living for people around the world. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of something like that?”
With over $50 million in funding from investors, in addition to its university partnership, this may be the first time the technology has had significant investment since Tesla built Wardenclyffe in 1906. Let’s just hope the private interest from those investments doesn’t lead to its demise, like it did for Tesla in 1917.
For more on the Wardenclyffe Tower and the legacy of Nikola Tesla, check out this biopic Free Energy of Tesla :
