Did Amazon’s Alexa predict that World War III will start in November 2023?

Claim:

Amazon’s Alexa predicted that World War III will begin on November 23, 2023 with a Russian attack on Germany.

Evaluation:

Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa has many helpful skills, but making predictions about future wars is not one of them. Despite this, a video claiming to show an Alexa predicting the start of World War III went viral in February 2023.

In the video, someone off-screen asks, “Alexa, when does World War III begin?” .”

This was not an actual prediction from the device; Alexa doesn’t respond to such questions with that kind of specificity. The video, sourced from TikTok, appears to have come from an account known for posting fake Alexa answers to questions.

The video above features TikTok user @iamnoahbrendan. That account released the clip in November 2021 and credited another account, @jonbuckhouse, as the producer of the video’s audio, or “original sound”.

The video was available on @iamnoahbrendan’s account, at the time of this writing. However, when we went to @jonbuckhouse’s account, the clip of Alexa supposedly making the WW3 prediction was gone. We’ve reached out to both accounts for more information and will update this story when we get feedback.

cite metadata, Newsweek completed that @jonbuckhouse appeared to be the original source of the footage. This TikTok account has inspired Snopes for fact-checking in the past, most notably with his video of Alexa allegedly predicting that Miami will be “completely destroyed” by a hurricane in 2025. in this video from 2020, Alexa reportedly said, “Today, President Donald Trump declared war on the rest of the world.” Clearly, that wasn’t an accurate statement:

A March 2021 YouTube compilation of videos by @jonbuckhouse asking Alexa to predict events has the same WW3 question and answer at 8:13.

news week also reached out to an Amazon representative, who said of the alleged war prediction, “This is not Alexa’s response and we were unable to replicate this video.”

Spokesman added that Alexa’s answer to the question would be: “There has not been a Third World War and it is impossible to predict if such a war will occur in the future. The First World War took place from 1914 to 1918 and the Second World War from 1939. 1945.”

We asked Alexa the question and she answered exactly as the speaker said.

It is impossible to accurately predict the start of a global conflict; only humanity and its technology can anticipate this Possibilities of a world war based on tensions between nations. The video with the alleged WWIII prediction made the rounds only days after Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech linking the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II – an unsuccessful attempt by Nazi Germany to capture Stalingrad – to the war in Ukraine. The possibility of a third world war was suggested by world leader And analyst when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In our recent coverage of the TikTok account posting fake Alexa answers, we noted, “Generally, when you ask Alexa such a question, the device searches online (Alexa’s search engine is powered by Bing) for an answer.” “

We also found that users can use “Alexa Blueprints,” a tool introduced in 2018, to generate customizable responses to specific prompts. So we know that Alexa could be programmed to respond to a specific question – say, “When does World War III start?” – with a user-created response. Amazon Policies Provide guidance on how to do this, with examples of the types of questions and answers people can create:

“Alexa, who’s the best mom?”

Alexa: I just compared all the moms in history and came to the conclusion that yours is the best.

“Alexa, what is the best city in the world?”

Alexa: I really like my hometown Seattle Washington.

These responses would only be used by the individual Alexa device programmed to say such things and would not apply to all Alexa voice assistants.

We previously wrote: “While Amazon’s voice assistant has developed a number of skills over the years, it has yet to learn how to predict the future. However, he has learned to provide tailored responses.”

This stays that way. We therefore rate this claim as “false”.