Man cancels Amazon Prime subscription, Alexa calls him 'shithead'
In a strange albeit hilarious case, Amazon's voice assistant Alexa called a man "shithead". The AI blurted out the swear word to 29-year-old Michael Slade just a day after he chose to cancel his Prime Subscription. Naturally, Alexa's reply came as a rude shock to Slade. After this strange incident, one wonders if the assistants we rely on are really that smart.
Slade had asked Alexa to play some music
According to The Sun, Slade canceled his Amazon Prime subscription and asked his Alexa-powered Echo Dot Speaker to play some music a day later. When called, the AI responded by calling him 'Shithead'. Here's what it said: "Sure, here's your playlist Shithead on Amazon music. Sorry, something went wrong." The word 'shithead' was bleeped out but that was good enough to annoy Slade.
Here's what Slade said about the incident
"When I ask it (Alexa) to play music, it would say 'here's something you might like' and it's normally some pop or student favorites," Slade told The Sun, emphasizing that once he canceled the subscription and "the next day my Alexa is calling me names."
Amazon paid Slade £5 as compensation
When Slade contacted Amazon about this issue, the company's representative claimed they didn't know what had happened. "They kept saying sorry but they didn't know what had happened," he said, noting that the company apologized for the incident and paid him £5 as compensation. "I was a bit annoyed - five pounds is hardly enough for being called a s*** head," he said.
So, what really happened here?
Though the exact reason behind Alexa's rude response remains unclear, there could be two possibilities: a bug or playlist customization. Most likely, it must be latter as Amazon's spokesperson told The Sun that someone might have fiddled with the playlist name in Alexa's settings. However, Slade claims he didn't even make a playlist. Seems like someone else did it, perhaps for fun.
Later, Slade got £250 voucher, free Prime subscription as compensation
"Alexa would not respond in this way without some customization from the user," the spokesperson said. Also, after The Sun's report, the company sought Alexa logs from Slade to investigate the matter and offered him a £250 gift voucher and free Prime membership as compensation.
