We definitely won’t be sleeping tonight.
Amazon have said that they are “working to fix” a glitch in Alexa devices after social media users said it started laughing randomly.
The housing voice assistant is designed to respond to commands when the user says a wake word, like Amazon or Alexa.
But according to social media reports, people have started hearing strange and unprompted laughter from their devices.
Some people have even begun to record the laugher and shared it only. We’re not sure if it’s to share the creepiness/prove it did happen, or simply to terrify us all.
https://twitter.com/CaptHandlebar/status/966838302224666624
Some people took to social media to claim that the laughter happened when they asked Alexa to play music or turn off the lights.
One person claimed that they would have preferred the laughter to what their Alexa did: listing off cemeteries nearby.
Others said that it happened totally out of the blue – which, to us, is even more terrifying.
Lying in bed about to fall asleep when Alexa on my Amazon Echo Dot lets out a very loud and creepy laugh… there’s a good chance I get murdered tonight.
— Gavin Hightower (@GavinHightower) February 26, 2018
https://twitter.com/RagglefraggleXD/status/971534905783062529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fwires%2Fpa%2Farticle-5477025%2FAmazon-works-fix-complaints-Alexa-s-creepy-laugh.html
unprompted, my alexa just said "sure, I can laugh: tee hee" and I'm moving out now
— daniel (@ddanielclemens) March 7, 2018
Hearing @amazonecho laugh late at night when I didn't expect it, is the most momentarily frightening thing I have experienced.
— Mike (@Nouders) February 28, 2018
Replying bc THIS creepy thing happened last night: we got home and, totally unprompted, our Amazon Echo/Alexa started talking. And then i realized it was listing off local cemeteries and funeral homes??? I'd rather it laugh at me tbh
— Kameaux (@HeyItsKamo) March 7, 2018
Me: dead silent
Alexa, unprompted: “what’s that massive fireball streaking across the sky” ☄️ pic.twitter.com/ILiBzjNVTd
— Kaitlin (@kaitlinmonte) March 2, 2018
Having an office conversation about pretty confidential stuff and Alexa just laughed. Anybody else ever have that?
It didn't chime as if we had accidentally triggered her to wake. She simply just laughed. It was really creepy.
— David Woodland (@DavidSven) March 1, 2018
https://twitter.com/taylorkatelynne/status/970738507718283265
And then there was the guy who tried to get Alexa to answer just why she was laughing at people. Even that didn’t quite work.
https://twitter.com/nfoust412/status/971623026344198144
But there’s apparently an innocent explanation for it all – so the end may not be here just yet.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Daily Mail:
“We’re aware of this and working to fix it.
“In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase ‘Alexa, laugh’.
“We are changing that phrase to be ‘Alexa, can you laugh?’ which is less likely to have false positives, and we are disabling the short utterance ‘Alexa, laugh’.
“We are also changing Alexa’s response from simply laughter to ‘Sure, I can laugh’ followed by laughter.”
