Backbytes: 'Alexa! Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?'

TV reporter sparks Amazon Alexa spike in dolls' house sales

It's said that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, was murdered by knights loyal to King Henry II after they overheard the King ask (rhetorically), "Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" and, acting on initiative, galloped off to Canterbury to do just that.

Today, one needs to be careful what anyone says in front of Alexa, Amazon's all-too-eager, all-hearing personal assistant.

That would appear to be the only conclusion that can be drawn after a careless television presenter accidentally set off Alexa devices across San Diego, California following a report about people (ie: fools and children) making accidental purchases.

The story told of a little girl who had asked Alexa, "can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?", which resulted in the delivery of a £159 KidKraft Sparkle mansion poppet-abode as well as 4lb of cookies (because apparently the toddler's demands also included something about cookies).

At the end of the story, as reported on CW6 news in San Diego, Ron Burgundy (or whoever it was) turned to his co-anchor Veronica Corningstone (or whoever) and uttered the immortal line, "I love the little girl, saying ‘Alexa ordered me a dollhouse'."

Suddenly, all across San Diego, Amazon Echo devices sparked into life, trying to order dolls houses for unsuspecting San Diegans.

At the moment, Alexa voice technology is still primitive enough to not always be able to distinguish between household members, news readers, people shouting orders through the letterbox etcetera. But the machine-learning algorithms get better the more they are used, and they're certainly top-notch when it comes to interpreting orders to buy stuff from Amazon.

In the meantime, Amazon has confirmed that it will accept returns on accidental orders made via Alexa, and suggests that users should implement the voice-confirmation code for orders placed on Alexa devices, controlled from the Alexa app.

We've seen first hand that Echo devices are not above taking their orders from the black mirror. Adverts for Echo on the TV invariably trigger Echo devices, which are always listening, but also things like sponsorship bumpers for Lexus cars have been sending devices doolally over Christmas and, on one occasion, for Dacia cars too.

Last week it was reported that Alexa misheard a request for a song about diggers as "Take me to pleasure town", with hilarious consequences.