CES 2019: Alexa interrupts Qualcomm's executive, says that's not true
What's the story
If CES 2019 is anything to go by, we can be sure that Alexa and Google Assistant will power the future of smart homes. As they are penetrating our lives, they also bring in a certain level of weirdness with them. To recall, just recently Alexa told a user to 'kill foster parents', and now, it has interrupted an executive's keynote. Here's what happened.
Alexa's comment
Qualcomm's CES keynote interrupted by Alexa
On Monday, Qualcomm demoed the third-generation of Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit platform. Designed to upgrade in-car experiences, the platform is basically a large OLED screen, which will serve passengers with Amazon services, including Alexa, while they are on the road. However, when Nakul Duggal, an executive from the chip-maker, was in the middle of explaining all this, Alexa randomly blurted out: 'No, that's not true'.
Twitter Post
Watch Alexa's "witty" remark
Qualcomm got a comment from Alexa: “not, that’s no true.” at CES News conference #CES2019 pic.twitter.com/IwEOpJuURT
— Lulu (@drlulujiang) January 7, 2019
Details
What was Alexa responding to?
Alexa's weird interruption came when Duggal was explaining the capability of the assistant to recommend nearby hotels and restaurants on the road, BuzzFeed News reported. Naturally, the response was met with amusement, but it is not clear what the assistant was actually responding to. Soon after this, the executive joked by saying he would not ask Alexa any questions and continued with the keynote.
Reason
Is this a sign of AI having its own mind?
The weirdness of this response, combined with Alexa's previous remarks, can raise alarms of AI revolution, but it is nothing like that, at least not as of now. Seemingly, a representative for the demo forgot to mute the assistant and it picked up a random phrase and responded to it. So far, neither Amazon nor Qualcomm has commented on what it meant.