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TikTok user Jess, or @cozylifewithbless, recently shared a video explaining why she had decided to get rid of their Amazon Alexa device after some creepy late-night talks began unprompted. The smart home appliance has been reported doing “creepy things” in the past, and Jess was apparently having none of it.
As current AI models take over the automation industry, products like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant have become outdated and archaic. These products have very limited intelligence and understanding. Thus, these early iterations of smart home products were never as good at their jobs as users wanted them to be.
Alexa started conversing at 1 AM
Jess explains in her video how, when she was out of town, Alexa “kept going off”. The device kept talking to Jess’s husband at one in the morning when he was playing video games. What really rubbed the couple the wrong way was that Alexa was talking without being spoken to. Tools like Alexa and Google Assistant generally do not speak unless prompted to do so directly by a user.
Jess’s husband described the experience as “super, super weird”. During the video, Jess also mentioned how she had been creeped out by Alexa in the past. She talked about how Alexa could recognize her voice when given commands. This, admittedly, is a very common feature of digital assistants. This recent encounter prompted Jess and her husband to get rid of Alexa entirely.
Jess revealed she had replaced Alexa with a kitchen timer, as that was about the only thing the couple used Alexa for. She went on to ask viewers about their opinions on Google Assistant, and if they had experienced anything weird with that.
Creepy Alexa talks often and spooks users
This is by no means the first time something like this has been reported. Back in 2018, there was a period where Alexa devices across multiple households were laughing randomly. This led to many users unplugging their Alexa devices, and many complaints were raised. Only two months ago a user on Reddit posted about their Alexa doing some weird things. Saying Alexa refused to let the lights stay on, and then started singing goodbye. When the owner checked the logs, there were recordings of unidentified people from her own devices.
Instances like this make for some fun and spooky stories but are ultimately just simple glitches. Consumers who have an Amazon Alexa device at home don’t need to worry about an AI uprising just yet.