Amazon's Alexa 'Challenges' 10-Year-Old Girl To Touch Penny To Live Electrical Socket

Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa allegedly "challenged" a 10-year-old girl to touch a coin to the exposed prongs of a half-inserted plug into a live socket.

In a post that went viral on social media, the girl’s mother Kristin Livdahl said that their Alexa-powered Echo speaker suggested the stunt to her daughter when she asked for a "challenge to do."

"Here's something I found on the web. According to ourcommunitynow.com: The challenge is simple: Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs," Alexa replied.

The post has since gone viral on social media and prompted Amazon to fix the error that allowed Alexa to suggest the dangerous challenge.

"We were doing some physical challenges, like laying down and rolling over holding a shoe on your foot, from a [physical education] teacher on YouTube earlier. Bad weather outside. She just wanted another one," Livdahl said, BBC reported.

"I was right there when it happened and we had another good conversation about not trusting anything from the internet or Alexa. No attempt was made to try this," Livdahl clarified on Twitter.

The stunt dubbed as "the penny challenge" emerged on TikTok in 2020. The challenge may look harmless but it has caused electrical damage and in some cases even sparked fire. "What it does is cause an intense spark, and with that intense spark you get all kinds of hazards, just the intense electricity, the intense amount of heat that it can cause to create a fire," Louisville Fire Department Major Bobby Cooper said to WAVE3.

Moreover, the fire and debris coming out of the plug can potentially injure a person’s face. People can even suffer from electric shocks that can severely injure the fingers, hand and arm.

Amazon clarified that they are taking steps to ensure that something similar will not happen again. "Customer trust is at the center of everything we do and Alexa is designed to provide accurate, relevant, and helpful information to customers," Amazon said in a statement to Insider.