Shropshire Star

This hilarious viral Tweet proves that Alexa fails are the new autocorrect fails

Michael Margolis asked Alexa to remind him to feed his baby… and got a result he was not expecting.

Published
Alexa: defeat the baby

A few years ago, the internet loved reading about hilarious autocorrect fails, but now it seems the Amazon Alexa has taken over when it comes to unfortunate mis-translations.

Michael Margolis, an engineering manager from San Francisco, wanted a reminder to feed his baby Reya, but instead got a slightly different message from the device.

The reminder: “Defeat the baby”.

Margolis said: “We will never be able to defeat the baby. The baby will always win. With experience, patience, and negotiation once she can communicate with more than screams and disapproving facial expressions, we hope we can reach a truce.

“Favourite reaction are the folks who reach out to say how nice my wife and I are because we are calmly explaining why we use an alarm.

“Instead of feeding the trolls, we used this as a teachable moment to help folks understand that some babies (including ours) are born early and need to be woken to fed.

“Similarly, many babies are sleep trained which involves pacing out their feedings, which means you don’t just feed them when they are screaming and hangry.”

The Alexa fail now has over 70,000 retweets, and plenty of people have shared their “lost in translation” stories.

Margolis said: “As new parents we often feel defeated by the baby. Getting her to stop crying, feed without too much fuss, and go down to sleep feels like a victory.

“It feels like beating a boss in a video game and I think that’s what resonated with people.”

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