Can a Parrot Really Order Stuff Using Amazon’s Alexa?

Rocco, an African Grey parrot accidentally ordered items from Amazon by speaking to Alexa.

Rocco, the African Grey parrot, has quite a rapport with Alexa. 

(Photo: The Quint)

Parrots are innately known to be naughty birds, but no one could have imagined that they would find Amazon’s Alexa to be the perfect partner in their naughtiness.

According to a recent report in the DailyMail, an African grey parrot, Rocco, be-friended Amazon’s voice-assistant Alexa and accidentally placed multiple orders for items online.

Till now, the feathered trouble maker has ‘bought’ some fruit and vegetables, ice cream, a light bulb and even a kite! And we thought Lago (the parrot from Aladin) had a big mouth.

So, should Amazon now be working on a ‘Parrot-proof patch’ for Alexa?

Currently, there is no specific voice training needed for Amazon Alexa, which means it’s not locked to one specific voice. The command ‘Alexa’ triggers the voice assistant and this is what happened in the case of Rocco the parrot.

Rocco who was at the National Animal Welfare Trust in Berkshire was relocated as the staff feared that he would use swear words in front of the visitors. One of the members of the trust, Marion Wischnewski, volunteered to take Rocco to her home in Blewbury, Oxfordshire. Yes, birds can swear!

After getting comfortable with the surroundings, Rocco decided to do a bit of exploring and made friends with Marion’s Amazon Echo device, which she used to order stuff from Amazon.

The African Grey — known for its ability to copy words added more items to Marion’s shopping list by speaking to the device. Imagine, one of the smartest AI driven gizmos in the world got duped by a bird!

One of the best examples of this is Petra, the African Grey parrot, who seems to have a knack of conversing with voice assistants.

It’s fortunate that Marion had activated the parental lock on her device, which requires two-factor authentication to make purchases. You can also set a password through the Alexa app so that such accidental purchases cannot be made.

Since discovering this, Miss Wischnewski has to check her shopping list every time after returning home from work and cancel all the items Rocco has ordered.

The parrot often interacts with the voice assistant and Alexa responds by playing music, telling him jokes and more. So technically, yes, a parrot can order stuff using Alexa!