Creepy Alexa Laugh Sweeps The Nation, Random Cackles Leaves Users Freaked Out

Some owners of Amazon Echo products are freaking out right now after they were subjected to one of the most frightening experiences imaginable; a creepy laugh coming from a machine. Without prompting, it seems Alexa has been giving users a fright by producing a bone-chilling cackle, especially for those who only asked it to do something as simple as turning off the light.

It would seem that Alexa doing creepy things is nothing new. A Reddit thread dedicated to discussing the many ways the Amazon smart assistant has given users a fright features everything from guessing very specific, very rare dog breeds in a game of 20 questions to waking users up to discuss someone they didn’t know.

Some of the more recent posts, however, had to do with Alexa producing one of the most terrifying laughter possible. Many have remarked that the laugh didn’t sound like the smart assistant at all but like a person.

Echo product owners are taking to social media to talk about their experiences, with one saying that his Echo dot just lets out what he called a "very loud and creepy laugh" just as he was about to call it a night, BuzzFeed News reports. Naturally, he felt like he was going to get murdered in his sleep.

Several possible explanations have been floated around, with some suggesting that perhaps Alexa simply misunderstood them when she laughed after being given a command. For example, saying “patio off” might have been heard by Alexa as “how do you laugh.”

Unfortunately, this doesn’t explain other cases where the smart assistant wasn’t even being addressed at all and simply laughed unprompted. In one account, for example, a user shared a story of how Alexa let out a witch-like shriek of a laughter that was disturbing enough for them to unplug the device.