Ed Sheeran will duet with Amazon's Alexa if you ask, and it's creepy
Amazon's virtual assistant belts out I Don't Care, replacing Justin Bieber.
- Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year" award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Ed Sheeran gives a concert at Wanda Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid in June. Alexa did not get on stage with him.
Alexa, the virtual assistant built into Amazon devices like the Echo, can play music, set reminders and timers, and shop for you on Amazon. And now she can also sing a duet with singer (and Game of Thrones actor) Ed Sheeran.
Try it. Just say, "Alexa, sing a duet with Ed Sheeran," and listen to Sheeran and Alexa trade lines on his song I Don't Care.
"Hey, Ed, here's a reminder," Alexa begins. "It's time for the party, let's go." And then Alexa's robotic and eerie voice starts trading lines with Sheeran.
It's definitely disturbing to hear the familiar Alexa voice deliver such lines as "uh, uh, yeah, I'm at a party I don't want to be at," and "you're making me feel like I'm loved by somebody." Nooooo, we don't need to know about the love life of a smart assistant, thankyouverymuch.
The song came out in May, and on the original release, Sheeran sings with Justin Bieber , not Alexa. The video for the Sheeran-Bieber version has earned 179 million views in less than two months.
Maybe Amazon programmers forgot the wise words of Jurassic Park's Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldberg): "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
Originally published July 12, 5:08 p.m. PT.