Speakers powered by Amazon Alexa have become a household staple for millions of people across the world . Alexa can be useful in a virtually endless number of ways, but according to some unfortunate users, it's now scaring the living daylights out of them.

Earlier this week, BuzzFeed reported that a number of people have had their Alexa speakers start laughing for no apparent reason. Alexa is reportedly laughing following regular voice commands, and in other cases, does so completely on its own.

In one such encounter, an Echo Dot owner said:

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.

For some people, things are getting even weirder.

I was trying to turn off some lights and they kept turning back on. After the third request, Alexa stopped responding and instead did an evil laugh. The laugh wasn't in the Alexa voice. It sounded like a real person. My wife was there when it happened and she is the only person who can drop-in. I still get chills.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING

I was manually turning the volume down using the buttons on my echo dot and it started laughing like she was being tickled. It was the weirdest thing...

💀💀💀

So I just used my Alexa to set a two-minute timer while trying to do a plank..........and I asked how much time I had left and she LAUGHED

I don't personally have an Alexa speaker to test this for myself, and quite frankly, I'm glad I don't. My Google Home has yet to start cackling in the middle of the night, but should that day ever come, I'll be throwing it out and swearing off technology until the robot overlords come for us all.

If you've got an Alexa-powered speaker, have you run into this phenomenon at all?