Obviously Alexa shouldn't give such answers, but at what point do you just exclude children from everything because everything ends up being a risk for them?
Edit: I worded things too strongly, but it does seem to me that in more and more cases we want to ban children from being able to use products or access services 'for their own safety'.
Was it right for them to ban a children’s toy that was specifically designed in a way that, when used correctly, would have a significant chance of killing children?
Another instance of CPSC recently is seen in the Peloton treadmill, but they’ve been doing safety recalls for dangerous yet little-noticed stuff like Generic Crib ABC That Strangles Babies from the market for decades now, once their process established a true risk of harm due to design defects.
I think I’m net comfortable with their existence, personally, since they don’t seem to issue recalls needlessly, and they’ve materially improved the safety of children without banning many products that will be missed.
Lawn darts may be cool, and it’s probably uncool to ban them, but no child is going to suffer for a lack of lawn darts in their life. Development requires human attention and play time (not screens), and there’s plenty of other ways to achieve that without CPSC-banned products.
I get that my views here are a viewpoint and an opinion, but I’m not yet persuaded that either the CPSC is overreaching in general by existing, or that their involvement in smart assistants would be overreaching in specific. Fortunately, since they do exist and they’re required to act when safety concerns are reported, my views are ultimately irrelevant to their decision-making process on whether to engage on this topic or not. Only legislation could stop them from choosing to care, and so any prediction on whether they will or not is entirely unnecessary.
I think liability overreach is the fault of legislators, who are too cowardly to set reasonable limits on when parents can sue for payment for untoward outcomes. The American legal system encourages “$1000 for a skinned knee, $100,000 for a broken bone” junk lawsuits where chance accidents are plausibly not the fault of playground builders (though in certain cases, they are, and the CPSC intervenes!). Resolving that “grow a spine” issue with our leaders and judges is independent from whether CPSC deserves to exist and is beneficial to public health.
The CPSC exists to ban companies from putting children in danger for their own profit.
Whether it deserves a response in the form of regulatory action is absolutely worth discussion, and is what I consider to be the primary question raised by this event, but that question has no bearing on whether it should be reported.
“Every manufacturer, distributor, and retailer of a consumer product distributed in commerce who obtains information which reasonably supports the conclusion that its product creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death is required to notify the Commission immediately. 15 U.S.C. 2064(b)(3). The requirement that notification occur when a responsible party “obtains information which reasonably supports the conclusion that” its product creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death is intended to require firms to report even when no final determination of the risk is possible. Firms must carefully analyze the information they obtain to determine whether such information “reasonably supports” a determination that the product creates an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death. (See § 1115.12(f) for a discussion of the kinds of information that firms must study and evaluate to determine whether they have an obligation to report.) Firms that obtain information indicating that their products present an unreasonable risk of serious injury or death should not wait for such serious injury or death to actually occur before reporting.”
You are making the assertion that "A device put a child's life at risk" this isn't established. Were and How is the device responsible for producing results to queries that the results don't require review before following the result.
To me, its seems silly to assume, that voice assistance results to queries will always be safe, for all people asking.
If Alexa is asked for a challenge and it provide the result to swim laps, that seems reasonable, but if the the person in question can't swim, and blindly attempts to do the challenge would the device be responsible for putting them at risk?
The idea that the device is responsible here seems silly to me, what would put a child at risk is letting them engage with the internet, if they haven't been taught to filter the results, and disregard things that would cause them or others harm.
I am making an assertion, as supported by the tweet, that a parent believes that their child’s life was put at risk by a device. The CPSC asks all parents who feel that to report their concern to the CPSC. One person’s belief is sufficient cause to trigger a report, same as it is with NTSB reporting. That’s the start and the end of my interest in this matter for this post.
The CPSC is responsible for evaluating the judgment calls you’re making, once that report is received: whether the device is responsible, whether the child can be reasonably expected to protect itself in this scenario, whether the device actually creates a material risk to children beyond just one parent’s feeling that it did.
This is the distinction between reporting (parents must always) and response (CPSC may not always) that I’m trying to make clear. Everyone automatically debates about whether a CPSC response would be appropriate, but I’m highlighting that reporting to the CPSC is always appropriate when you feel that a device put a child at risk, regardless of what anyone else feels about whether the device is actually responsible or not.
We are in the vast majority not equipped with the training, processes, and domain-specific knowledge about children’s minds, to decide that a report should not be submitted. We cannot be trained in this in any reasonable amount of time — and a parent’s free time for optional training is less than zero, in any case.
Yes, it may be found that the device ultimately isn’t actually responsible at all; but, all the same, that report should be made.
A device put a child’s life at risk. The CPSC’s duty is to assess whether other children are at risk as well, and if they deem it necessary, seek redress from the manufacturer to mitigate that risk.
They may or they may not deem smart assistants emitting unregulated and unmonitored verbal commands to children to be sufficient a risk to seek redress against. That choice is theirs, not ours, and is no excuse to cease reporting of child safety events such as this one.