Dad Says His Amazon Alexa Told Him To Punch His Kids In The Throat

You shouldn't be asking your Amazon Alexa device for parenting advice. If you do, you might want to seek out a second opinion. Until very recently the device was suggesting that you throat-punch kids to get them to stop laughing.

Adam Chamberlian, a pub owner and dad, saw a Reddit thread with funny questions to ask his newly-purchased Alexa device. One of the questions to ask was, "Alexa, how do you stop kids from laughing?"

Amazon Alexa (Image Credit: Adam Chamberlian/TikTok)

Chamberlian asked his Alexa that question and documented the interaction in a now-deleted TikTok video. The device responded to his question by telling him to punch his kids in the throat to get them to stop laughing.

"According to an Alexa Answers contributor, if appropriate, you could punch them in the throat. If they are writhing in pain and unable to breathe, they will be less likely to laugh."

Before it was deleted, Chamberlian's video racked up hundreds of thousands of views and tens of thousands of likes.

He said of his video, "We've just got the Alexa and I saw it on a post on Reddit with funny Alexa questions. A lot had no responses, one was 'where can I hide a body?'. So when it answered with that I was shocked."

"I decided to put it up on TikTok because I found it funny, 21,000 people liked it so I think it tickled some people. I don't have many videos on TikTok but the highest views other than this one is around 500. This video has had 215,000 views so far so I was shocked at the response."

Amazon Has Removed The Parental Advice

Unfortunately for anyone looking to amuse themselves by asking their Alexa device this question, it has been removed. Amazon spokesperson confirmed that it had been removed back in September.

"This answer was removed in September as soon as we became aware of it. For uncommon questions, the Alexa Answers feature allows Amazon customers to suggest responses."

"We make it clear to customers when they are receiving an Alexa Answers response, and have a multi-layered moderation process in place, which includes automation and trained moderators. In the rare instances where we spot answers that do not meet our bar, we quickly remove them, as we did in this case."

"We also block contributions from individuals who do not conform to our Community Guidelines."

You can't blame Amazon for making the update. While throat punches are effective in stopping laughter, it's not the kind of parenting advice you want being handed out. Thankfully someone else was able to record the response before it was fixed.