TikTok users are asking Amazon’s Alexa unanswerable questions about the outcome of rapidly strengthening Hurricane Milton, which is forecast to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Alexa is providing users with inaccurate answers, sparking panic and conspiracy theories that have already garnered over a million views on TikTok.
Users are asking variations of the same question: “Alexa, what kind of hurricane was Hurricane Milton?”
“From fandom.com: Hurricane Milton was an extremely powerful Category 5 hurricane that caused widespread damage across its path in October 2024,” respondedAlexa in multiple videos. (Although Media Matters couldn’t replicate the response, Alexa did tell us the death toll and monetary damages of a hurricane that has not yet made landfall when we asked if there were any fatalities from Hurricane Milton).
Alexa’s response cites fandom.com, a fan-generatedentertainment and gaming platform. Within fandom is the Hypothetical Hurricanes Wiki, a “wiki-based comprehensive database of hypothetical tropical cyclone articles that anyone can edit.”
You know Milton is going to kill people, right?
yes
And you think that people dying is worth it to show that Alexa spreads misinformation?
I think people trusting Alexa for information regarding a hurricane probably deserved it.
Who else in your estimation deserves to die? Should we just set up camps to take care of it quickly and stop them from being a drag on the economy?
let’s start with the politicians who voted against bills that would reduce carbon emissions.
So we should put people who trust Alexa for hurricane information and certain politicians in death camps. I see.
I think you are probably not worth listening to or talking to, especially after a quick check of your recent comments.
The word ‘deserve’ is a human concept invented purely to assert a false sense of control over a universe which has no interest in you.
I am assuming the government issued a severe weather alert and that just about everyone with an Alexa has a phone. the overlap of people that will find the setting to turn off severe weather alerts on their phones and trust Alexa is probably small, especially if Alexa says the source of fandom.com