Alexa's random laugh is creeping users out

Some Alexa users are reporting a creepy experience, as some of Amazon's voice assistant devices are malfunctioning with an unprompted, random laugh, CNN reported.

"We're aware of this and working to fix it," Amazon said in a statement, noting that the device can hear the command, “Alexa, laugh,” by mistake, CNN reported.

"We are changing that phrase to be ‘Alexa, can you laugh?’ which is less likely to have false positives, and we are disabling the short utterance 'Alexa, laugh.'" Amazon said in its statement. “We are also changing Alexa's response from simply laughter to 'Sure, I can laugh' followed by laughter.”

The speakers use microphones to detect phrases that Alexa can “hear,” which has some people concerned the listening devices could be collecting data that can be used by marketers or law enforcement officials, CNN reported.

Audio recordings collected by an Alexa device have already been used as evidence in a murder case, CNN reported.

Cox Media Group