Ha ha ha ha (Picture Getty)

Remember that bit in 2001: A Space Odyssey when the computer turns evil and purrs, ‘I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that’?

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We may have reached that moment with Amazon’s now-ubiquitous Echo devices, which seem to be emitting ‘evil’ and ‘witch-like’ laughs and refusing to obey their masters.

One user claims that Alexa refused to turn the lights in his house off, repeatedly turning them on with an ‘evil laugh’

So is it time to unplug the devices and shove them into a toaster before they turn on us and murder us all in our sleep?




Quite possibly.

Lying in bed about to fall asleep when Alexa on my Amazon Echo Dot lets out a very loud and creepy laugh… there’s a good chance I get murdered tonight. — Gavin Hightower (@GavinHightower) February 26, 2018

WHY DID MY ALEXA JUST LAUGH OUT OF THE BLUE?!?!?!? — Kyle Fitzy Shanklin (@kylefitzy8) March 4, 2018

unprompted, my alexa just said "sure, I can laugh: tee hee" and I'm moving out now — Daniel (@ddanielclemens) March 7, 2018

Amazon’s Alexa is supposed to laugh when you tell it a joke – but users are reporting that the devices are laughing at inappropriate moments.

Inappropriate… and sometimes alarming.

My alexa just laughed out of nowhere time to unplug this shit — Roy (@Nai_Roy) February 25, 2018

So Alexa decided to laugh randomly while I was in the kitchen. Freaked @SnootyJuicer and I out. I thought a kid was laughing behind me. pic.twitter.com/6dblzkiQHp — CaptHandlebar (@CaptHandlebar) February 23, 2018

An Amazon spokesman told Metro.co.uk, ‘In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase “Alexa, laugh.” We are changing that phrase to be “Alexa, can you laugh?” which is less likely to have false positives.

‘We are disabling the short utterance “Alexa, laugh.” We are also changing Alexa’s response from simply laughter to “Sure, I can laugh” followed by laughter.’