[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.