FIRST-WORLD PROBLEMS: Alexa, Stop Making Life Miserable for Anyone With a Similar Name!

“Alexa, stop!” Joanne Sussman screamed in her living room.

Immediately, the computer living inside her Amazon Echo speaker stopped playing her favorite music station. Simultaneously, Mrs. Sussman’s 24-year-old daughter, Alexa, froze on the stairs.

“What, mom? I’m taking the laundry down,” human Alexa shouted back. “What do you need?”

“I always liked my name, until Amazon gave it to a robot,” says Alexa Sussman, a recent New York University graduate who works in marketing.

Everyone I know (I don’t know anyone named “Alexa”) who has one loves their Alexa, but “Hey, Siri” and “OK, Google” are much smarter key phrases.