Amazon's Alexa Challenged a 10-Year-Old Girl to Put Penny on Live Plug

When a 10-year-old girl asked her Amazon Echo device for a “challenge to do,” the digital assistant Alexa suggested that she take a penny and put it on the prongs of a device that’s been partially plugged into an electrical outlet, the BBC reported.

“Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,” Alexa replied to the girl's inquiry.

Kristin Livdahl, who is the girl’s mother, talked about the concerning incident on Twitter.

“We were doing some physical challenges, like laying down and rolling over holding a shoe on your foot, from a [physical education] teacher on YouTube earlier. Bad weather outside. She just wanted another one,” the girl’s mother said, per the BBC.

Luckily, Livdahl said that her daughter didn’t go through with the dangerous challenge as she’s “too smart to do something like that.” The outlet reports that the “penny challenge” has been circulating on TikTok and pointed out that partaking in it can result in electric shocks, fires, and injury.

In a statement provided to the BBC, Amazon said that an update was rolled out to fix the problem.

“Customer trust is at the centre of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers,” Amazon said. “As soon as we became aware of this error, we took swift action to fix it.”