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Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Why Amazon’s Alexa Can’t Tell You If It’s Connected To The CIA

Is your Amazon Echo device — and its virtual assistant Alexa — somehow connected to the CIA? A video of one Echo refusing to answer that question both amused and alarmed (but mostly amused) viewers, but Amazon is now chalking it up to a glitch that has since been fixed.

You may have seen the video circulating in the past few days; the original has been taken down but the AV Club still has a copy hosted if you want to watch.

But the recording is only 44 seconds long, and very straightforward. A woman, off-camera, asks Amazon’s Alexa — via an Echo Dot — if it will lie to her. Alexa responds in the negative — “I’m not always right, but I would never intentionally lie.” Then she asks Alexa to define the CIA for her, which Alexa does. Then it gets suspicious:

Speaker: “Alexa, are you connected to the CIA?”
Echo: [light blinks briefly, unit goes silent]

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

amazon is controlled by goggle and google is controlled by government, same as verizon...so yes, gov can still use any and all this info and equipment at their will

Anonymous said...

10:56 Am: At least one other person than myself understand this... I don't know why everyone else is so stupid to this fact... And they can't figure out, that you give up your rights and security all for the sake of simplicity or speed or whatever, and what is funny here is, I can pay with cash, and get my change faster than you can swipe your card and or sign some paper if places still make you sign... Everyone thinks the new tech is all this and that, and everyone has to have it yet all it does is make you lazy, and give the govt access to you... Also, to add, what is funny is how the CIA or NSA guy was on tv laughing at all of us on how we handled the Edward Snowden info dump and said don't worry about being tracked via the phone, we will get you via the washer and dryer... So that tells you right there, they have other avenues to hack, track and get your stuff they want... Why do you think the FBI made a big deal over a dead terrorist Iphone??? Then called everyone with an Iphone a terrorist because you didn't want the govt spying on you... Yet they won't stop spying and won't tell you they are spying so you develop a way to stop it and now you are a terrorist, so see folks, you all are a terrorist is some way according to the govt... So don't think just because you "Have nothing to hide" or "I don't break the law" becasue they don't care, if you have 2 weeks worth of food, you are a terrorist, so I am sure just breathing clean air makes you a terrorist too...

Even more funny, is how you run your mouth about how everyone who told you this was happening was wrong, yet you believe the lying media when they talk about how right those other conspiracy guys were...

Anonymous said...

I asked Alexa if she was connected to the CIA...I laughed my wife laughed and the CIA laughed.