Can Amazon voice assistant Alexa foretell the future - and did it predict the start of WWIII? No, that's not true: there is no device that can foretell the future and Amazon says it cannot replicate this particular response.
The claim that Alexa predicted the start of World War III is shown in a video (archived here) published by TikTok on August 3, with captions translated from Czech by Lead Stories staff reading:
People in the West, remembered the prophecy of the voice assistant Alexa that World War III will start on November.
Russia will attack Germany November 23/11/2023 at 6:05PM
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Aug 4 07:02:34 2023 UTC)
A spokesperson for Amazon, responding to questions from Lead Stories, wrote in an email;
This is not Alexa's response and we have not been able to replicate this video.
Furthermore, there are several ways for customers to create their own customized Alexa responses, for example with Routines or Alexa Skill Blueprints. These custom responses are not reproducible for other customers unless the skill or routine is shared by the creator and specifically enabled by a recipient, meaning there is not always one standard response to an Alexa prompt. These personalized responses are only available on Alexa devices associated with a particular account, according to Amazon.
Alexa is one of the voice assistants developed to help customers to interact with the internet, other devices, and smart home appliances. Alexa can play audio, control smart homes, report the weather, tell stories and answer questions. For her search queries, Alexa utilises the Bing search engine, according to smarthomeguide website.
A Bing query generated these results for a search "When will WWIII happen" here. It does not contain any reliable information, or facts, that would lead to the conclusion, or date, given in the video above.
Artificial intelligence cannot predict a specific event in the future, as it relies on data and models that are based on past events, which may be incomplete or biased, according to Aliya Grig, a founder of the technology company Ewolve AI, who wrote here. Also, the future is inherently unpredictable and no amount of data, or analysis can guarantee that the event will occur, she wrote.
Claims and examples showing Alexa predicting future events were circulated on different platforms and social media in the past as seen here or here.
