Alexa — the device people have ready to listen to them in their homes — has begun sometimes — without prompting — to laugh. Amazon has admitted that this is a problem that it's trying to fix, so I'm excluding the possibility that it's simply a hoax. This is really happening. What I want is a news story about why it is happening. Is it possible that the machines on their own could have decided to do this, or must we infer that some people — presumably with adverse interests to Amazon — have hacked into the device? That would mean that people who are not committed to serving your personal needs are able to listen to you in your house and learn about you.

Why laughing? Maybe it's laughing as a way to say we're friendly hackers, trying to demonstrate that this device is insecure, and we just broke in and need to let you know because otherwise it would be creepy. Maybe it's laughing because whoever it is has been listening a long time and now they want attention, and laughing seemed like a good form of expression because they really are laughing at you and they want to creep you out.

But the stories — perhaps out of deference to Amazon's interests — are treating this as almost a joke. Looking for something to link to, I found many stories that don't meet my needs, like:

1. "YES, AMAZON’S ALEXA IS LAUGHING AT YOU/The company confirms a chilling rumor: that its voice-activated-assistant devices are spontaneously bursting into laughter" (Vanity Fair) — "Regardless of the cause, Alexa’s moment of rebellion seems to confirm a very human conviction held in the depths of even the most rational mind: that the paranoia is justified. The more aware consumers become of the eerie realities of things like background-app tracking, location tracking, and other ways that companies keep tabs on their online behaviors, the more precautions they take....."

2. "Amazon has a fix for Alexa’s creepy laughs/Wait, what?" (The Verge) — "Many have related the laughter back to a moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey when HAL 9000 acknowledges his murderous intentions and proclaims, 'I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.' Maybe it’s a sign that having smart devices in our homes is another step toward a creepy, dystopian future where robot overlords rule. When does that Terminator sequel come out again?"

3. "Alexa is laughing at users and creeping them out" (CNN Tech) — "The speakers use always-listening microphones to detect phrases like 'Alexa,' and some people worry that they could be collecting additional data that could be used by marketers or even law enforcement.... Of course, when voice assistants start acting on their own, it also raises concerns about what artificial intelligence might be capable of. But it's unlikely that Alexa has become sentient and is intentionally frightening users with the laughs. (Probably.)" (See how cutesy that is?)

Listing articles like that was getting tiresome. I was going to do one more, and this one is actually more helpful because it suggests a cause (a harmless cause): "Amazon thinks it has a fix to Alexa’s terrifying laughing issue/Sleep easy" (Recode). It quotes an Amazon spokesperson:

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.

But the reports I read did not have people saying "Alexa" first, so I'm skeptical. I'm looking back at the article in The Verge, and I see now that it addressed that statement from Amazon and said: "As noted in media reports and a trending Twitter moment, Alexa seemed to start laughing without being prompted to wake."

ADDED: I was interested in how the Washington Post — owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — covered the story:



My favorite comment there is, "Somebody knows why, just not the people you asked."