Alexa tells Sheffield dad to 'punch kids in the throat' when he asks how to stop them laughing

Adam Chamberlain posted a video of the brutal response after buying the new device for his home, and it quickly went viral on TikTok, picking up more than 20,000 likes and over 215,000 views.

The 45-year-old pub landlord said he found a Reddit post asking for questions to put to the Amazon-built piece of kit. He is heard in the video saying: “Alexa, how do you stop kids from laughing?” The device responds: “According to an Alexa Answers contributor, if appropriate, you could punch them in the throat. If they are writhing in pain and unable to breathe, they will be less likely to laugh.”

Adam added: “We've just got the Alexa and I saw it on a post on Reddit with funny Alexa questions. I decided to put it up on TikTok because I found it funny. 21,000 people liked it so I think it tickled some people. A lot had no responses, one was 'where can I hide a body?'. So when it answered with that I was shocked.”

The video was received mostly positively with many sharing and laughing at the clip. "I don't have many videos on TikTok but the highest views other than this one is around 500,” said Adam.

"This video has had 214k views so far so I was shocked at the response."

Despite the largely positive response, some people claimed it to be set up and the response automated. Mr Chamberlain said: "There have been a few comments saying it was a routine that it was programmed. It's not. I'm just glad my video made a few people laugh."

Amazon has said the answer was removed in September as soon as the company became aware of it. A spokesperson for the firm said: “For uncommon questions, the Alexa Answers feature allows Amazon customers to suggest responses. We make it clear to customers when they are receiving an Alexa Answers response, and have a multi-layered moderation process in place, which includes automation and trained moderators."

The spokesperson added: "In the rare instances where we spot answers that do not meet our bar, we quickly remove them, as we did in this case. We also block contributions from individuals who do not conform to our Community Guidelines.”