[shkkmo]

The source for the result was a page warning about a dangerous challenge that parents should watch out for.

Alexa stripped that context away completely and instead added a timer that discouraged careful consideration. This is an algorithmic failure, regardless of the age of the user. Having this sort of failure in a product that has been explicitly advertised for use by kids looks pretty bad and thus it is unsurprising how quickly amazon acknowledged the error and promised to fix it.

It might be unreasonable to expect Alexa to make the internet safe for kids, but if they want to be included in homes with children, they need to at least not directly make the internet more dangerous for children.

I expect that managing children's safety online will become a key product feature of Alexa in years to come.