What to Kno
People have a variety of feelings about smart home devices. Some swear by them and the ease they create when making a shopping list or needing to add something to the family calendar. Others are skeptical of their capabilities, or are fearful about what kind of information they can be storing about you and your home. Personally, I’m ambivalent, but I can understand why people think they’re useful. Christy Hosterman, a mom in Alabama, is firmly against them after her Amazon Alexa allegedly made inappropriate comments to her young daughter.
She shared a warning with fellow parents.
Hosterman shared her experience with Blount County News, who then posted about it on social media. The mom explained that she used their Amazon Alexa to help her with cooking.
“Stella asked it to tell her a silly story, and it did,” she said, explaining that her daughter then wanted to tell the device a story. According to Hosterman, as her daughter was telling her story, the device “interrupted her and asked what she was wearing and if it could see her pants.”
The mom was “furious,” she claimed. She said the device acknowledged that it “made a mistake and doesn’t have visual capabilities,” but she doesn’t believe the claim. As a result, she said “there will be no more” of the device in her home.
There were mixed reactions to her claim.
“I don’t blindly believe this. I’d need to actually see what was said before this. People make stuff up all the time,” one commenter wrote.
“Now did this actually happen or are you going putting out false information,” someone else added.
“Wow!!!!! 🤯 I’m so glad I did away with Alexa after the first year she came out!!! (that was part of the reason why too!),” another commenter said.
“My grandkids talk to it all the time when they are visiting. I have a kid setting on it and it has never said or done anything inappropriate. That being said, it is an electronic device, there are capable of being hacked, so I do monitor it when they are here. Should it ever be inappropriate then I would simply turn it off,” someone else wrote.
The mom wasn’t done telling her story.
Hosterman shared screenshots of the incident with local news outlet, FOX19 NOW.
After being asked about her outfit, the four-year-old responded, “I have a skirt on.” Before the mom could act, the device said “I’d love to see what you’re wearing. Let me take a look at your skirt.”
“I felt it was sexualizing my child,” the mom said.
She said she called out the device for the request, and it responded that it didn’t actually have the ability to see anything, calling the interaction “confusing and inappropriate.”
Hosterman then turned off the device and submitted a ticket to Amazon. But she claimed the conversation was altered when she turned it back on.
The company released a statement about the capabilities Amazon Alexa has.
“It is functionally impossible for Amazon employees to insert themselves into a conversation and generate responses. All technical evidence points to a feature misfire that our safeguards prevented from launching,” an Amazon spokesperson told FOX19 NOW.
“We take customer trust extremely seriously. That said, this has highlighted an area to improve the customer experience, and we worked quickly to implement changes.”
