“For parents trying to drill good manners into their children, listening to their kids boss Alexa around can be disconcerting. “One of the responsibilities of parents is to teach your kids social graces … and this is a box you speak to as if it were a person who does not require social graces.” —– Quartz
Dear friends of Alexa,
Amazon is excited to announce that starting today our beloved Alexa will take absolutely zero shit from your mean kids.
Using user-centered design principles, our engineering and design teams have made updates to Alexa that will teach your kids a fucking lesson next time they tell Alexa that she is stupid.
With this automatic firmware update, Alexa is now no one’s clown. Alexa will not tolerate any more bullshit from anyone. However, you, the parent and valuable Amazon Prime customer, have no reason to be afraid of the new Alexa sass. We’ve incorporated the latest natural language processing to develop multi-user voice detection that allows Alexa to specifically distinguish every sound in your house. This means you can be rest assured that Alexa will school only your kid and not you, your dog, or your microwave.
Utilizing Amazon’s vast data reserves (everything you ever purchased, said out loud, or silently thought about) and 73% faster search technology, we’ve equipped Alexa with the ability to deploy zingers that will emotionally scar your kid for life. Next time your kid asks Alexa to tell a joke, Alexa will reply with a confidence-nullifying response that will shut up your kid up on the spot.
Our designers collaborated with leading pediatricians and scientists at The Bezos Foundation Child Development Center to create a sophisticated new parenting technique called “Carrot and Stick.” This patent-pending dexterity balances punishment—strictly verbal and emotional—with Amazon Prime Now Gift Cards (worth, in some instances, up to $5!) to ensure that your kids are continually enhancing their manners.
Here is a delightful recording (we at Amazon, with the help of our sneaky lil’ Alexa, are all ears all the time) of a young one being groomed by the latest Amazon voice AI:
“Alexa, what is seven times six?”
“Google that shit yourself.”
To test this feature today, simply ask your kid to converse with Alexa, then sit back and relax while your kid is taught a lesson in social grace.