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Thursday, March 8, 2018

Case Of 'The Laughing Alexa' Solved


Alexa, Amazon's digital assistant, has been busting out with a weird laugh at random intervals for some users, freaking them out. according to USAToday.

Posting on Twitter, Alexa users have described the laugh as "creepy," "evil," "bone-chilling" and "freaky."

By Wednesday Amazon had gotten to the bottom of the mystery.

It turns out that in rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase “Alexa, laugh” even when that’s not what was said. Alexa then interprets the phrase as a command and laughs.

Amazon has changed the phrase necessary to make Alexa laugh to, “Alexa, can you laugh” which should be less likely to generate false positives.

In addition, Alexa will no longer respond to that question with simple laughter but instead will say, “Sure, I can laugh” followed by laughter.

The Alexa team has also disabled the phrase “Alexa, laugh” as a trigger.



The short laugh that users recorded and posted on Twitter consisted of three closely-spaced "ha-ha ha's."

This laugh sounds slightly sarcastic, as if the person laughing were trying to convey that they didn't really find whatever they'd just heard funny. It's very definitely not a cheerful or bright laugh.

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