An Amazon Echo personal assistant device recorded the audio of a domestic violence incident and automatically called 911. The woman had a tech friend program the feature into the device for just such an incident.
911 was called and the dispatcher heard the argument. In 5 minutes, police arrived at the house in a suburb of Boston. The husband was arrested and the Echo was taken in for questioning. “This is the first time I have questioned a robot,” said detective Tom Smith. “But it answered all our questions. And the best part is it didn’t ask for a lawyer. It even told me the weather forecast.”
With more digital assistant robots listening to every word we say, evidence is becoming more and more plentiful. The husband had given the Echo to his wife for her birthday. The ‘Domestic Violence’ app has already been downloaded 50,000 times.
Echo representatives declined to comment on the potentially life-saving incident.
