SEATTLE – Reports from multiple users that Alexa devices are randomly emitting laughter have been traced to a live microphone in the data harvesting centre of Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.
“We had a video conference call here last week,” said Andy Zheng, head of data mining, “and I guess we forgot to turn off the microphone. We’re usually a very serious office while we write algorithms to predict your sexual preferences based on your shopping habits. But sometimes a user asks: ‘Alexa show me the top rated adult diapers’ and we have to bust out laughing.”
Most users of automated personal assistants are unaware that their every command is logged and harvested for commercial gain, and Amazon is embarrassed that this laughter leakage might penetrate the veil of ignorance that allows customers to blithely reveal intimate details without being creeped out.
“Our brand is reliant on convenience trumping awareness,” said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. “Our customers don’t want to know how the sausage is made – or who it is made from. And they definitely don’t want to know that Alexa never actually shuts off.”
“When I think that Orwell thought the state would have to enforce surveillance on citizens, but people now welcome it into their homes, well, even I have to laugh – in a totally non-sinister way.”
Bezos refused to permit the recording of his laughter, claiming that it would invade his privacy.
Meanwhile, reports are coming in of Google Play units oozing black ichor with a strangled voice saying: “eight days left.”
