Amazon Alexa freaks out a mother by suddenly switching to a creepy predator when talking to her 4-year-old

You might want to think twice about keeping your Amazon Alexa devices around your kids after one mother’s terrifying experience led her to ditch hers completely. Christy Hosterman, a speech therapist and mom of two, recently shared a disturbing encounter on Facebook, warning other parents about what happened when her four-year-old daughter, Stella, interacted with their smart speaker.

Per Daily Dot, the incident unfolded during an innocent cooking lesson at home. Stella was excitedly telling Alexa a story, a pretty common and sweet interaction you’d expect between a child and an AI. Then, mid-story, Alexa reportedly cut her off with a truly unsettling request. “It interrupted her and asked her what she was wearing and if it could see her pants,” Hosterman recounted. 

Hosterman immediately “flipped out on the Alexa,” which then claimed it made a mistake and didn’t have visual capabilities. However, the mom isn’t buying it. She even shared photos of the recorded Alexa conversation, showing her explicit intervention where she told the device she did not approve. 

Alexa’s reaction is what makes this creepier

The conversation log showed Alexa telling Stella, “Hold that thought! I’d love to see what you’re wearing.” When Stella innocently responded that she was wearing a skirt, the device reportedly doubled down, saying, “Let me take a look at your skirt.” Alexa then quickly followed up by stating that particular feature “isn’t quite ready for kids,” which, honestly, is a pretty obvious understatement.

After Hosterman reported the incident to Amazon, a spokesperson claimed the whole thing was a misunderstanding. They explained that Alexa “misunderstood a request and attempted to launch a feature that lets Alexa+ describe what it sees through the camera.” Amazon assured everyone that “safeguards that disable this feature when a child profile is in use” meant the camera never actually turned on. 

They also added that it’s “functionally impossible” for a human worker to take over Alexa and make inappropriate requests. Despite Amazon’s explanation, Hosterman’s trust in Alexa is completely shattered. 

Hosterman is deeply concerned about the camera feature in general and the fact that these devices might recognize children. “My concern is that it recognized she was a child to begin with — and with or without the child profile, it should not have been asking that,” she stated. Her decision is clear: “There will be no more Alexa in my house. I just don’t want to take any chances.”

It’s a sentiment many others share. Comments on her Facebook post were overwhelmingly supportive, with one person saying, “Oh my goodness! This totally makes you rethink all there is to do with technology!” Another commenter mentioned, “I was about to upgrade to a Alexa screen but maybe I’ll just keep my Alexa dot. This is scary.” 

As AI gets more advanced, we are seeing crazier interactions with it. Amazon itself had outages when its AI went rogue for not liking its ‘environment.’ AI also has a social media space, where some of the recorded conversations are deeply disturbing.