I was watching the classic movie Chinatown with the sound turned up because of my poor hearing. Suddenly, my Amazon Alexa started making loud, rude, farting sounds. I was at first surprised, then totally confused, then disgusted. It took me a few minutes to figure out what happened. I call my Alexa “Echo,” one of the names Amazon permits you to use to activate the device. In the movie, the protagonist, J.J. Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson, very clearly pronounces the name of a Los Angeles neighborhood: Echo Park. My Echo misheard the phrase as the command, “Echo, fart!”
Jim DeFilippi is a prolific and eccentric American writer and novelist. His website is jimdefilippi.com. Jim is a Five Minutes Founding Contributor.