Amazon’s Alexa just announced its weirdest feature yet. Soon you can choose to have a deceased loved one tell you stories, play music or simply turn on the lights – all from your Alexa device.
While Amazon claims the goal is to “make the memories last” after “so many of us have lost someone we love” during the pandemic, the feature seems oddly manipulative and outright eerie: something straight out of a Black Mirror episode.
Twitter was equally weirded out:
Haha who stole the plot go a black mirror episode!
— InYourDreams🇬🇩🇹🇹🏴 (@Darr3nPhillips) June 22, 2022
This didn’t turn out well in black mirror
— Amy Rose 🥀 (@cottagec0re_) June 22, 2022
black mirror was first!
— otto (@pcbstan) June 22, 2022
When do we start living in a Black Mirror episode ?
— The Resistance Review (@T_Rreview) June 22, 2022
Yes. This is the first thing I thought.
— Stuart Schofield 🇺🇦🇬🇧🇵🇱🇪🇺🏴 (@Stujka) June 22, 2022
Season 2, Episode 1: Be Right Back.
That’s pretty effing weird.
— graphocalypse (@graphocalypse) June 22, 2022
I’d rather not be spied on by this.
— Darth Karen #KenobiMID (@OliOnTwt69) June 22, 2022
Delete your Alexa account!
— Archie (@ArcherMail) June 22, 2022
No
— Ed Kemp (@EdCKempy) June 22, 2022
That’s just way too freaky.
— 🇬🇧Roaring Meg🇬🇧 (@RoaringMeg1872) June 22, 2022
Haunting people pic.twitter.com/dSu3W0890L
— Branty (@Branty60621229) June 22, 2022
Alexa play Grateful Dead.
— The Korova Milkbar (@FishInky) June 22, 2022
ALEXA, PLAY GRATEFUL DEAD.
Fuck sake, Alexa I said Grateful Dead, not Dead grandma.
Among many other reasons, this is why we do not talk to plugged in devices at home. That is some grade A freak feature…
— David C (@davykettlechip) June 22, 2022
Good to see that while the planet boils, the priority for science remains “how do we sell robot ghosts?” https://t.co/xunjcOYK25
— Joel Morris (@gralefrit) June 23, 2022
My grieving widow will take a lot of comfort from an artifical uncanny valley digitised voice trained on me screaming abuse in a much thicker, more unhinged version of my accent because it kept mishearing me asking for a 10 minute timer whilst cooking dinner. https://t.co/zAbGJDeIot
— Europe’s Leading Soccer Futurologist (@TreborRhurbarb) June 23, 2022
Nation’s Older Brothers Prepare Cruelest Pranks Ever https://t.co/Gb2RXpMN8h
— Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) June 23, 2022
Awesome stuff mental health wise https://t.co/IhNOCgdLu8
— broti gupta (@BrotiGupta) June 23, 2022
No thank you https://t.co/G0ASZHSUZK
— rabia O’chaudry (@rabiasquared) June 23, 2022
Every horror story writer in the world is about to be upstaged. https://t.co/2rSgtGMn0D
— Undine (@HorribleSanity) June 23, 2022
This is incandescently awful? https://t.co/t2sDF5ujVm
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) June 23, 2022
Tech companies watch Black Mirror and take the notes to product development https://t.co/0YnHUFFyH8
— ᴍᴇᴅɪᴜᴍ ᴘᴜɴ 🐝🔮 (@fotoqueen24) June 23, 2022
It’s cool that technology has evolved this far but I don’t think it’s right to play a prank on our brains like that. At some point, it will retaliate.
