You may often ask your digital assistant why the hell it did something that irked you, but you know its insolent silence is all you’ll get in return. Well, not anymore.
If you have an Alexa-enabled device, you can ask her exactly what the bloody hell she’s playing at, and get an answer. The latest update will let you ask Alexa why she did something, and she’ll respond with a brief explanation. You can turn the screw on her by asking her questions like:
- “What did you say?”
- “What just happened?”
- “Did you hear that?”
- “What did you do?”
- “What’s up with that?”
You can demand to find out more about her response to “voice requests, Bluetooth connections, routine triggers, and more,” says Amazon. So no more being confounded at Alexa’s actions – you can confront her about her shenanigans. Which is handy, because soon Alexa will be in almost everything. At the end of last year, Amazon announced its intention to make cheap ad easy-to-install Alexa-enabled devices to sit in your home and on your body.
If that thought fills you with dread, you might want to keep on top of deleting your digital assistant’s log of your conversations – because there could be humans listening to you too. Here’s how to find and delete everything you’ve ever said to your digital assistants, just to be on the safe side.
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.