[emilgouliev]

The product is Alexa the voice assistant, not the tiny speaker+microphone.

Amazon makes this product.

When the child spoke to the device, Alexa made a deliberate decision to look up a challenge on the internet (presumably, from a website it deems as safe). In doing so, Amazon endorses the challenge.

The product put a child’s in life in danger.

This is not very complicated.

[NikolaNovak]

How do we arrive at "amazon endorses the challenge"? And, whatever logic is used, does it also indicate Google, Bing and Yahoo endorse it as well?

[southerntofu]

Because Alexa will give a single answer, vetted by its neural network. If i'm presented with several links and related context, i'm responsible for interpreting them and weighing the pros and cons. If the "search engine" gives me only one authoritative answer, of course it's responsible for whatever bullshit comes up.

The same situation could occur between friends:

- I'm bored, what should i do?

- You could bake cookies, or you could jump from a cliff.

In this case, irony/context is preserved. If my friend calls a "I'm bored" phone line service, and they tell them straight ahead to jump off a cliff, i'll certainly hold that phone service responsible for what happens next.

[gruez]

> Because Alexa will give a single answer, vetted by its neural network. If i'm presented with several links and related context, i'm responsible for interpreting them and weighing the pros and cons. If the "search engine" gives me only one authoritative answer, of course it's responsible for whatever bullshit comes up.

so CSPC needs to fine google for their "I'm feeling lucky" feature?

[throwingawayyou]

This highlights the lack of true General Intelligence and blurred lines with ML/AI. Our most advanced companies, with advanced processing power, can't even text match with the common sense of a mouse, maybe an insect? Either way, it appears not to exist. We love hype in this industry. Let's put on our headsets now, and head into the metaverse.

[LinuxBender]

I think that means 4chan could teach Alexa what to tell kids? They have reprogrammed search engine results many times just for laughs.

[3a2d29]

Not to pile on, but that's just not how AI works. Basically then, Alexa must be shut off from searching the internet at all, since anything its algorithm finds would be company endorsed.

And search engines certainly do give on answer, google "are eggs good for you" and you will see an answer highlighted at the top of the page.

[Normal_gaussian]

It looks like the original page is a warning to parents about the challenge existing. So where a search engine shows it in its original form its fine. Amazon selected just the challenge, skipped the warning, and told the child to do it.

[BizarroLand]

A competent lawyer would write this up so quickly that Amazon would settle rather than fight it out. I don't know the full story but it seems like this is a quick 5 figure payout for the family.

[tadfisher]

That would require damages. If the child were injured, that would be provable. Otherwise the claimants will be in for a long and drawn-out process of manufacturing lasting emotional distress.

[BizarroLand]

Emotional damages of seeing your child nearly get talked into electrocuting themselves by an appliance. Thats actually traumatic if framed correctly. Plus the bad press? Amazon would be smart to throw $20,000 at this and hope it fades away.

[em3rgent0rdr]

How about emotional "shock"? (pun intended)

[toss1]

>>How do we arrive at "amazon endorses the challenge"?

The system Amazon's designed, built, maintains, and runs, actively interpreted the request and out of thousands or millions of answers, specifically selected THAT ONE to return as the result.

They obviously had somewhere between zero and massively insufficient filtering process to filter out inappropriate or non-responsive answers. They presumably have filters for porn and vulgarity, which would cause an uproar, but are not bothering with life-protecting.

This is because either 1) Amazon are too stupid to anticipate the problem, or 2) they did anticipate the problem and don't care enough or figure, like Ford did with the Pinto, that the costs likely damages are lower than the costs of making it safe.

Either way, the only ethical choice is to not field that product. Amazon did not take that choice.

>>And, whatever logic is used, does it also indicate Google, Bing and Yahoo endorse it as well?

If they are providing similar answers to children, without caveats, yes, of course.

[johnisgood]

Yeah. I see people defending these companies, or companies defending themselves by hiding under "AI" and "ML". That does not absolve you from the consequences. You made the AI sub-optimal, it is harmful. Shut it down if it is not working properly, or assume responsibility for your crap.

[toss1]

Yup!

Microsoft shut down that Hitler-loving "Tay" "AI bot in a hurry for some offensive speech - doing a LOT less than deliberately telling children a good method to have fun by electrocuting themselves.

Even if you cannot explain the inner workings, — and actually ESPECIALLY if you cannot explain the inner workings, if it is YOUR bot, it is YOUR responsibility.

Utterly disgusting to hide behind "it's just the algorithm". When L5 self-driving cars from Acme corp start driving off of bridges and running over bicycles, shuld we just let Acme and their apologists say "oh, it's just the algorithm/AI, not our fault, we don't need to fix it"?

[hdjjhhvvhga]

The logic is very simple. When you create a product, you can choose either closed (curated, checked) or open content. The latter gives you much more possibilities but poses several serious problems, just like this one. If you choose this route, you need to face the consequences.

[dr_dshiv]

>When the child spoke to the device, Alexa made a deliberate decision to look up a challenge on the internet

I don't think that's fair. A reasonable parent knows that Alexa's main function is to look things up on the internet.

[harryf]

The product is _designed_ to be something humans will relate to and "become part of your lives", much like a housepet. Watch Amazon's own intro video narrated by the little girl - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYtb8RRj5r4

At 3 minutes the little girl says "Echo loves to to play music" ... i.e. it's expected that children will project emotions onto Echo, which in turn means an implied level of trust they will have to the device. Also the girl in the video is using at times _without_ parent supervision...

So sorry the whole "it's just a dumb device designed to search the Internet and you should know better" argument doesn't fly here.

[popcube]

yes, if they want to sold product in this way, how can they argue when people really trust it?

[rowanajmarshall]

> A reasonable parent knows that Alexa's main function is to look things up on the internet.

Well, it's what Amazon would like Alexa to be for. For me, and everyone I know, its a podcast/music player plus timer and weather-teller.

[sokoloff]

I think people who have used Alexa to look things up on the internet know how comically terrible it is at that. “Here’s something I found…[that you might struggle to figure out how I thought that was related to your query]”

For us, it’s a music player, kitchen timer, and weather-teller.

[sandworm101]

>> Amazon makes this product.

No. If I were arguing the case I would phrase it as "Amazon provides this service". This is not a manufactured product but an advice line. Whether Amazon chooses to automate that line, or staff it with real people, or at least have a person vet recommendations ... such are Amazon's business decisions for which they are liable. The augment is not that the phone is defective but the service behind that phone.

[CountDrewku]

No, this is as silly as saying Google is responsible for search results.

>This is not very complicated.

You're right it's not complicated. People are responsible for their own actions, that's where the line is. The device or software isn't making them do anything.

Kids tell each other to do stupid things all the time, are you going to hold other children responsible when some stupid kid acts on what they tell them to? There's a reason the "would you jump off a bridge if someone told you to" saying exists....

[piva00]

> People are responsible for their own actions, that's where the line is.

In most countries on Earth there is another line as well to personal responsibility: age. Usually considered to be 18 years old when you are fully responsible for yourself, before that age there are numerous safeguards against harm to children (including provisions for their actions to not be considered on the same level as an adult).

You are pushing the personal responsibility line onto a 10 years old, think about that...

[CountDrewku]

No I'm pushing responsibility onto the ADULT parents. Who controls what the kids do? Parents. Do you think merely putting an age restriction on alexa devices does anything? Yeah I've TOTALLY never seen any kids playing GTA, smoking, drinking, seeing R rated movies, accessing pornography etc.. Give me a break.

None of that is enforceable without parents making sure it's enforced.

>You are pushing the personal responsibility line onto a 10 years old, think about that

You are being ignorant about the reality of the world. Think about that.

I see you failed to provide an actual way of stopping children from accessing Alexa. Why don't you inform us all on how that will done?

If you rely on corporations to be the moral safety compass for your children you've already failed. I don't care what legal or political ramifications you put in place, it won't help. That is 100% not the way to deal with this.

[piva00]

> I see you failed to provide an actual way of stopping children from accessing Alexa. Why don't you inform us all on how that will done?

By not having an Alexa. At least not in the current state of affairs, I'm on the camp that always-on voice assistants need to be regulated before they invade the privacy of every home in the planet.

If your product is not good enough to be used safely by your expected customers then it shouldn't exist, I'm not Amazon and I don't have all the man-years power of thousands of engineer to think about a solution to this problem, I have a moral stance where I don't think this technology should be pushed the way it is, as an unfinished piece of shit that serves the purpose of collecting data, if there is an instance where it's been shown to be dangerous then it shouldn't be on the market, it's pretty simple.

I work in tech and I'm really fucking tired of getting unfinished products pushed to market so corporations (and their product managers) can use humans as guinea pigs for big tech to experiment on... Really, really tired.

Don't like your tone, won't really engage further.

[CountDrewku]

>By not having an Alexa.

So, your idea is force people not to buy Alexa? You want a law that bans Alexa from the market? Good luck.

Here's a novel idea. Don't buy it. You don't get to decide for other people.

>Don't like your tone, won't really engage further.

What you don't like is that I called you out on your bs.

[piva00]

> What you don't like is that I called you out on your bs.

Nah, just really tired of engaging with libertarians pushing the bullshit line of "personal responsibility" to every single issue.

Alexa is marketed towards kids as well, parents can't control every single instance a kid will interact with Alexa therefore Amazon regulates Alexa either by goodwill or by force of regulations. Guess which one is compatible with capitalism? As you said, we shouldn't rely on the goodwill of corporations ;)

Godspeed, Ayn Rand acolyte.