Alexa Randomly Laughs And Creeps People Out: Here's Why

For many, Alexa is indispensable. But now the voice of Amazon Echo virtual personal assistant is randomly laughing at people, creeping them out in a big way. Alexa sometimes mistakenly hears a command to laugh, according to Amazon, which says it’s working on a fix.

Several users of the device reported on Twitter that they’ve been startled by the unprovoked cackle, which some users described as “evil,” “witch-like” and “unnerving.”

In the future, Alexa will only laugh if she — rather, it — is specifically asked to do so.

“In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase ‘Alexa laugh’,” Amazon said in an email to BuzzFeed News, which first reported the bizarre phenomenon. “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.’ We are also changing Alexa’s response from imply laughter to ‘Sure, I can laugh,’ followed by laughter.”

It’s unclear if the prompted laugh will be less creepy clown-like and more mirthful.

Twitter user Gavin Hightower probably hopes so. He tweeted that just as he was about to drift off to sleep, Alexa “lets out a very loud and creepy laugh.”

“There’s a good chance I get murdered tonight,” he wrote.

Twitter user adhiyajna said the “footage of Alexa laughing is so terrifying,” adding, “We are doomed.”

Twitter user Evil Von Brainstorm said Alexa is creepy without chortling.

“Mine doesn’t laugh but about a week ago, alone, watching TV at around midnight, she lights up and says, 'He’s home. He’s home.' Freaked me out,” the user tweeted.‏

But why just pick on Alexa, wondered a Twitter user identified as Bad Banjo Botherer, who said Siri, an intelligent personal assistant featured on some of Apple’s products, “has a wicked side as well.”

Siri is snotty, too, it turns out. Bad Banjo Botherer protested when Siri called him stupid, then responded with, “From now on, I’ll call you ‘idiot,’ OK?” he tweeted.

Which all leads to the question: Isn’t life hard enough without artificial intelligence creeping and calling us out?

Have a listen of Alexa laughing below: