(LifeSiteNews) — A Texas mom recounted a disturbing exchange between Amazon’s Alexa device and her four-year-old daughter.
“There will be no more Alexa in our house,” Christine Hosterman told WXIX News, “I don’t want to take that chance of that happening again.”
Hosterman was referring to an incident in late February where the popular Amazon household artificial intelligence (AI) device made an inappropriate comment to her young daughter.
The four-year-old had asked Alexa to tell her a silly story as she had done many times before. She then began to tell Alexa her own story about a princess when, according to the mom, “Out of nowhere, Alexa said, ‘Hold that thought, I’d love to see what you’re wearing.’”
Before her mom could intervene, the girl told Alexa, “I have a skirt on.”
“Oh my gosh! Why is this device asking what she’s wearing,” wondered Hosterman, who concluded that the device was “sexualizing” her child.
Hosterman then addressed Alexa: “This is her mom. I do not approve of you trying to look at her outfit.”
The device then apologized, saying its response was “confusing and inappropriate.”
Hosterman provided many screenshots of the original exchange to the WXIX reporter, which she says were later altered by the AI device.
A tech expert consulted by WXIX said that what the Hosterman household experienced was likely something different from AI making a mistake.
“It feels to me like a potential predator — seeing there’s a child accessing this and gauging where the conversation is going — that’s more of a human being trying to steer down this direction,” said Dave Hatter, who worked writing software for more than 20 years.
Amazon disagreed, claiming in a statement to the outlet that “It is functionally impossible for Amazon employees to insert themselves into a conversation and generate responses as Alexa. All technical evidence points to a feature misfire that our safeguards prevented from launching.”
