Not ‘Mom’ Or ‘Dad’, This Baby’s First Word Was ‘Alexa’ – That’s How Much Technology Affects Us

A child’s first word is something really special, and parents eagerly look forward to it. There’s a contest of sorts, to see if the baby’s first word is ‘mama’ or ‘dada’. But things aren’t the same these days, all thanks to the technology that has dominated our lives.

While AI is changing our lives in wonderful ways, it might also play spoilsport.

The parents of a toddler from the US were horrified after their kid uttered her first word – it wasn’t ‘mom’ or ‘dad’, it was ‘Alexa’.

The 26-year-old mother who hails from Blandford Forum, Dorset was shocked when her daughter Annabelle said her first word. The baby girl tapped the Amazon Echo and repeatedly said “Alexa”.

The little girl had been watching her three-year-old brother Lucas play with the voice-activated gadget for months. Annabelle’s mother, Catherine even got her husband Liam to see the girl say her first words.

Liam, while speaking to the Mirror, said that ever since she said her first word on Monday, Annabelle had repeated it a dozen times, even when she was getting baptised later that day.

The girl’s father further said that they used the technical gadget with the children to play nursery rhymes.

The toddler seems to love the word according to her distraught parents who struggled to teach her ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’. Annabelle says ‘Alexa’ the moment she wakes up!

It’s very easy for children interacting with voice-assistant technology to grasp words and this is worrying not just in Annabelle’s case, but in many others.

Last year, a baby in the UK apparently said “Alexa” before he said ‘mama’ or ‘dada’, and his story sparked a raging debate on how new technology was affecting children early in their lives.

Source:

www.indiatimes.com