On Friday, users from across the globe started complaining that Amazon's Alexa does not seem to be working properly. According to DownDetector, Alexa is having issues in the UK and some other parts of Europe, like Germany, Italy, and France, responding "sorry, something went wrong" to any kind of requests.
The users' Alexa-connected devices appear to be offline or process requests way too slow, as the voice assistant declares it is having "difficulty understanding right now".
With their voice assistant temporarily silent, users flocked to Twitter to lament about how they now feel that they're in the "Stone Age" being forced to set their own alarms, check out the weather for themselves, and even switch the lights on manually.
Some netizens suggested this may be an indicator of the beginning of machines taking over.
There were other ideas. Given that Alexa's apparent "outage" took place mainly in the United Kingdom, some users suggested that the voice assistant is simply following the government's COVID-19 guidelines.
Did someone try to actually ask Siri about what has happened to her long-time rival?
Amazon's tech support has already confirmed there are issues, with its local departments assuring users that they are trying to solve the problem. For some netizens, the much needed services appeared to have returned already, as they report Alexa being back with them again, ready to switch on their lights.