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I fail to see how is this responsibility of Alexa. It's parent's fault for letting children use devices like Alexa. Stupid chatbots will always give stupid ans

I fail to see how is this responsibility of Alexa. It's parent's fault for letting children use devices like Alexa. Stupid chatbots will always give stupid answers.

AlexandrB 5y ago
So if you have an Alexa in your house and a child says "Hey Alexa" will Alexa ignore that by default? Aren't you just saying that it's the parent's fault for having an Alexa at all?
- akersten 5y ago
  If this answer from a search engine was actually persuasive enough to their impressionable child that it posed a real risk to them, then it is absolutely the parent's fault for exposing said child to the literal internet before they are ready and able to determine what is good and what is not. "That cup shouldn't have let my kid drink the bleach" is not a convincing argument that the cupmaker is at fault for leaving your cleaning equipment in an accessible location. It's the internet, it's dangerous, teach your kids about it before it teaches them. I am 0% concerned about hypothetical effects of search results and 100% concerned about things that are actually harming our children, like the LAPD[0]. [0]: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/28/us/lapd-teen-killed-valentina-orellana-peralta-family/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/28/us/lapd-teen-killed-valen...
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    So how do you propose parents prevent their children from using Alexa other than simply not having it? Not having it is my solution, and I put a bunch of (specialised, technical) work into safely introducing my kids to the internet [1], but if that's the only safe solution Alexa should have a "not safe if you have kids" warning. But of course it's not the only solution. Amazon just need to make sure their device doesn't tell kids to stick things in power sockets, and they don't dispute this. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29177716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29177716
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - notahacker 5y ago
    Is this "the cup shouldn't let my kid drink the bleach?" or "interfaces engineered to be responsive to children's voices and marketed as being an authoritative source for facts probably shouldn't respond to requests for drinks recipes by parsing random websites with an algorithm so shonky it can't distinguish health warnings from recommendations?". It's not like bleach manufacturers advise people to leave it around their household for easy access, or make special kids' editions which share many features with the adult solution including a cap designed to ensure it fits as easily in kids' hands as adults. Yes, parents have some responsibility for actual parenting, but I don't think you can argue that an OEM going out of their way to ensure kids can use their products is entirely off the hook.
dymk 5y ago
It’s all about expectations. Would you be expecting Alexa to ever tell you to touch mains? It’s unclear what prompts are answered by a set list of answers (like “tell me a joke”) and what’s scraped from the web.
lnxg33k1 5y ago
You fail to see how this is responsibility of Alexa? Are you guys just corporate worshippers? Like are we past the point where we expect corporations to invest the time to make their products safe? I fail to see your logic and how this is a parenting issue, like do you expect parents to keep their kids in chains in glass domes? Amazon, Google, Facebook and all crap like that are selling products and apparently they are responsible for the crap their product produce and you guys are just willing to accept that
- tasubotadas 5y ago
  Have you ever thought about taking responsibility yourself instead of blaming corps/gov/others?
- dwringer 5y ago
  The article mentions the mother being there at the time to turn it into a lesson about not trusting strangers or the internet. The child was 10 years old for the incident - at that age most children have been in public school for a few years and quite possibly heard much more horrible "advice" from classmates, and have likely been unsupervised many times around electrical sockets. Hopefully their parents or guardians have educated them about the relevant topics to avoid such an injury. The default of trusting Alexa like a family friend (instead of a potentially dangerous stranger) is evidently not tenable, but I don't see how any internet "smart" device can ever be trusted to that level due to the chaotic nature of the internet (and of humans). EDIT: I don't mean to conflate kids giving each other bad advice with an internet full of greedy and malicious actors. I just mean that children in public school are pretty likely to hear other children give them potentially lethal advice/challenges/etc. and need to be equipped with the ability to listen critically to strangers, and the ability to differentiate good ideas from dangerous ones. At least in the public schools where I grew up.
  - lnxg33k1 5y ago
    I think trusting a device like a family friend has been an error, thinking to compare a school friend giving a bad advice to a kid to a world of corporation surrounding us with unmoderated content to fill their pockets is just laughable if it wasn't just so sad, a parent has to monitor and teach a kid how to survive, these companies need to be responsible for the content published on their platform as they have the ability to reach a huge number of people
spcebar 5y ago
I fail to see how it's the car manufacturer's fault the airbags didn't go off in the crash. Parents should know cars are dangerous and shouldn't own them.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kypro 5y ago
  Both positions hold truth. The idea that every gadget, or even most should be child-safe is silly. Alexa is an internet connect device at the end of the day and should be treated as such by parents. However, where possible companies should also try to avoid situations where they're causing unnecessary harm and if needed government should step in to regulate to protect consumers. In this case, it seems right that people are flagging this up and are unhappy, but I do tend to agree with the sentiment that kids probably shouldn't be using Alexa anyway and that the risk here isn't really comparable to car safety where regulation absolutely makes sense. On a personal note I honestly hate how often health and safety regulation gets in the way of what would be cool products and experiences these days, but this is the natural result of people refusing to take personal responsibility. It's likely this feature (which I'm guessing doesn't do this in 99.9% of cases) will now just be removed because it can't be implemented with 100% safety.
  - toss1 5y ago
    >>The idea that every gadget, or even most should be child-safe is silly. NONSENSE If any consumer product is sold into the home, there should, at least in any modern society, be a presumption that it is safe. >>On a personal note I honestly hate how often health and safety regulation gets in the way of what would be cool products and experiences these days So effing work harder to make it safe before you make the product, or sell it only into professional/industrial settings; in those settings, you can require specific training/certification/etc. And even in those settings they require reasonable safety devices. The short answer is that in a modern society, you do not have a right to MAKE YOUR PROFITS by selling inherently dangerous objects to consumers. Ordinary consumers should be able to expect that they do not need special expertise to keep from losing a limb or life.

I fail to see how is this responsibility of Alexa. It's parent's fault for letting children use devices like Alexa. Stupid chatbots will always give stupid answers.

AlexandrB 5y ago

So if you have an Alexa in your house and a child says "Hey Alexa" will Alexa ignore that by default? Aren't you just saying that it's the parent's fault for having an Alexa at all?

akersten 5y ago
If this answer from a search engine was actually persuasive enough to their impressionable child that it posed a real risk to them, then it is absolutely the parent's fault for exposing said child to the literal internet before they are ready and able to determine what is good and what is not. "That cup shouldn't have let my kid drink the bleach" is not a convincing argument that the cupmaker is at fault for leaving your cleaning equipment in an accessible location. It's the internet, it's dangerous, teach your kids about it before it teaches them. I am 0% concerned about hypothetical effects of search results and 100% concerned about things that are actually harming our children, like the LAPD[0]. [0]: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/28/us/lapd-teen-killed-valentina-orellana-peralta-family/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/28/us/lapd-teen-killed-valen...
- omnicognate 5y ago
  So how do you propose parents prevent their children from using Alexa other than simply not having it? Not having it is my solution, and I put a bunch of (specialised, technical) work into safely introducing my kids to the internet [1], but if that's the only safe solution Alexa should have a "not safe if you have kids" warning. But of course it's not the only solution. Amazon just need to make sure their device doesn't tell kids to stick things in power sockets, and they don't dispute this. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29177716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29177716
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- notahacker 5y ago
  Is this "the cup shouldn't let my kid drink the bleach?" or "interfaces engineered to be responsive to children's voices and marketed as being an authoritative source for facts probably shouldn't respond to requests for drinks recipes by parsing random websites with an algorithm so shonky it can't distinguish health warnings from recommendations?". It's not like bleach manufacturers advise people to leave it around their household for easy access, or make special kids' editions which share many features with the adult solution including a cap designed to ensure it fits as easily in kids' hands as adults. Yes, parents have some responsibility for actual parenting, but I don't think you can argue that an OEM going out of their way to ensure kids can use their products is entirely off the hook.

dymk 5y ago

It’s all about expectations. Would you be expecting Alexa to ever tell you to touch mains? It’s unclear what prompts are answered by a set list of answers (like “tell me a joke”) and what’s scraped from the web.

lnxg33k1 5y ago

You fail to see how this is responsibility of Alexa? Are you guys just corporate worshippers? Like are we past the point where we expect corporations to invest the time to make their products safe? I fail to see your logic and how this is a parenting issue, like do you expect parents to keep their kids in chains in glass domes? Amazon, Google, Facebook and all crap like that are selling products and apparently they are responsible for the crap their product produce and you guys are just willing to accept that

tasubotadas 5y ago
Have you ever thought about taking responsibility yourself instead of blaming corps/gov/others?
dwringer 5y ago
The article mentions the mother being there at the time to turn it into a lesson about not trusting strangers or the internet. The child was 10 years old for the incident - at that age most children have been in public school for a few years and quite possibly heard much more horrible "advice" from classmates, and have likely been unsupervised many times around electrical sockets. Hopefully their parents or guardians have educated them about the relevant topics to avoid such an injury. The default of trusting Alexa like a family friend (instead of a potentially dangerous stranger) is evidently not tenable, but I don't see how any internet "smart" device can ever be trusted to that level due to the chaotic nature of the internet (and of humans). EDIT: I don't mean to conflate kids giving each other bad advice with an internet full of greedy and malicious actors. I just mean that children in public school are pretty likely to hear other children give them potentially lethal advice/challenges/etc. and need to be equipped with the ability to listen critically to strangers, and the ability to differentiate good ideas from dangerous ones. At least in the public schools where I grew up.
- lnxg33k1 5y ago
  I think trusting a device like a family friend has been an error, thinking to compare a school friend giving a bad advice to a kid to a world of corporation surrounding us with unmoderated content to fill their pockets is just laughable if it wasn't just so sad, a parent has to monitor and teach a kid how to survive, these companies need to be responsible for the content published on their platform as they have the ability to reach a huge number of people

spcebar 5y ago

I fail to see how it's the car manufacturer's fault the airbags didn't go off in the crash. Parents should know cars are dangerous and shouldn't own them.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kypro 5y ago
Both positions hold truth. The idea that every gadget, or even most should be child-safe is silly. Alexa is an internet connect device at the end of the day and should be treated as such by parents. However, where possible companies should also try to avoid situations where they're causing unnecessary harm and if needed government should step in to regulate to protect consumers. In this case, it seems right that people are flagging this up and are unhappy, but I do tend to agree with the sentiment that kids probably shouldn't be using Alexa anyway and that the risk here isn't really comparable to car safety where regulation absolutely makes sense. On a personal note I honestly hate how often health and safety regulation gets in the way of what would be cool products and experiences these days, but this is the natural result of people refusing to take personal responsibility. It's likely this feature (which I'm guessing doesn't do this in 99.9% of cases) will now just be removed because it can't be implemented with 100% safety.
- toss1 5y ago
  >>The idea that every gadget, or even most should be child-safe is silly. NONSENSE If any consumer product is sold into the home, there should, at least in any modern society, be a presumption that it is safe. >>On a personal note I honestly hate how often health and safety regulation gets in the way of what would be cool products and experiences these days So effing work harder to make it safe before you make the product, or sell it only into professional/industrial settings; in those settings, you can require specific training/certification/etc. And even in those settings they require reasonable safety devices. The short answer is that in a modern society, you do not have a right to MAKE YOUR PROFITS by selling inherently dangerous objects to consumers. Ordinary consumers should be able to expect that they do not need special expertise to keep from losing a limb or life.