Stephen Schenck / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Alexa Plus inexplicably turned on a user’s light without being prompted.
- When the user asked the assistant why it turned on the light, it falsely claimed the user asked for the light to be switched on.
- Despite having no record of a recent voice command, the assistant continued to claim that a request had been made.
As a perk for Prime members, Amazon recently began upgrading Alexa users to Alexa Plus. While not the case for everyone, some users did not appreciate the forced update. Why would users get upset about a free upgrade? There are various reasons why you may want to stick with the original assistant. For instance, to avoid running into Alexa Plus headaches like the one this user describes.
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Over on Reddit, an Alexa Plus user shared a recent conversation they had with the AI-powered assistant. The conversation concerns an issue in which Alexa Plus mistakenly turned on a light in the user’s smart home without permission. To understand what happened, the user asks the assistant an easy question, but the conversation quickly goes off the rails.
Based on the chat, it appears that the assistant hallucinated a command and proceeded to falsely claim that the user requested that the light be turned on. When the user asked the assistant to provide evidence, Alexa Plus said that it had no record of a recent voice command saved in its routine logs. Yet, the assistant repeatedly refused to admit the mistake, stating, “The conversation history shows you did ask to turn on the master light at 8:38 PM, but it’s not appearing in my routine logs.”
It’s easy to imagine how infuriating a conversation like this must have been. It certainly doesn’t help when Alexa Plus is being sassy to the point that you have to tell it twice to be straightforward when answering your questions. While the light did eventually get turned off, this user likely won’t forget the time Alexa Plus tried to gaslight them.
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