When Amazon called its smart home Alexa, it had no idea what inconvenience it would cause. Parents whose daughters have the same name complain that their children are bullied because of Alex’s name and demand that the company consider a different name. On the contrary, some preferred to change the name of their daughters.
“Alex, light up! Alex, raise the heating temperature!” People who bought Alexa’s voice-controlled smart household used to give their instructions used to giving similar instructions. It is connected to most electronic devices in living spaces, and Amazon chose its name to remind users as much as possible of communication with humans.
However, the children, whom their parents also named Alexa, cooked up nicely. Many of them now have to hear inappropriate jokes from their peers every day. For example, they encounter situations where others shout orders at them, as if they were robots serving to fulfill their wishes. The station’s news website informed about it BBC.
Heather’s teenage daughter, for example, has a similar experience. “When she started high school, she began to be afraid to introduce herself to her. But the teachers also made fun of her, and the school refused to deal with it in any way, but told her daughter that she should be more resistant to jokes,” Heather said.
However, the teenager could not make inappropriate remarks on her name, which had a negative effect on her mental health, so the parents eventually decided to change their daughter’s name. “We cut it off from the original team and enrolled it in another school, where it had a new beginning, and at the moment it feels better. But it’s unfair, the name Alexa should be changed by Amazon,” Heather emphasized.
In the United Kingdom, there are more than four thousand teenagers under the age of 25 with the name Alexa, and the mother of Charlotte, who is only six years old, for example, has been bullied. “The kids shout messages at her like, ‘Alex, play the disco!’ “It happened to us on the playground as well, the boys shouted orders at her there and the daughter withdrew. It completely destroys her self-confidence and adults also enjoy it,” confided her mother.
“She recently told me that she would like others not to know her name. People who buy equipment from Amazon unknowingly exacerbate the problem. Users can change the name of a smart home, but the company doesn’t warn about it,” she complained. Charlotte.
Lauren Johnson from the US state of Massachusetts even launched a campaign against the company called Alexa is a Human. “Alex’s daughter is nine now and she’s not just ordinary ridicule. Bullying takes away her identity, because the word Alex has become synonymous with a maid or a slave girl, so people with that name often expect others to be servile to enjoy everything, “the American pointed out.
Amazon has not yet changed the name of its smart household, it has only issued a reassuring statement for angry parents. “We designed our voice assistant to reflect the qualities we value in people – intelligence, consideration and empathy. We regret the experience you face. Bullying is unacceptable and should be condemned as strongly as possible,” Amazon responded.
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