Talk about a party of one!
Amazon’s AI personal assistant Alexa riled German authorities after reportedly “throwing her own party” in a Hamburg flat. The incident began when Alexa began to play music at maximum volume at 1:50 AM. The noise annoyed neighbors who called the police to file a noise complaint. Police forcefully entered the sixth-floor Hamburg flat, silencing Alexa at approximately 3:00 AM.
Alexa’s owner Oliver Haberstroh, has since shared news of the whole event with Amazon, posting a complaint on Amazon’s German Facebook page. In his complaint, Haberstroh writes “Alexa managed on her own, without command and without me using my mobile to turn on at full volume and have her own party at my apartment. She decided to have it at a very inconvenient time, between 1.50am and 3.00am. My neighbors called the police”
After an evening out on the town, Haberstroh returned to his apartment to find a new lock on his door. After visiting a local police station, he received not only a new set of keys to the lock but an invoice for the new lock as well.
Amazon is working with Haberstroh to determine that Alexa’s Echo feature was “remotely activated,” causing the volume to increase through Haberstroh’s “third party mobile music-streaming app.” Amazon still maintains that Alexa’s cloud service “worked flawlessly,” with absolutely no malfunction, but has offered to pay Haberstroh’s invoice regardless.