Man programs Alexa to talk through moving skull
A robotics enthusiast thought it would be worthwhile to put a face to the disembodied voice of Alexa, Amazon Echo’s voice assistant program. The face he chose to use, however, was one that not even a mother could love and wouldn’t be out of place in a nightmare.
After watching the Alexa Billy Bass video, Mike McGurrin felt inspired to do something similar, but with a sinister twist. Using a Halloween decoration of a talking scull with moving eyes and jaw, he jimmied it sit atop the interactive speaker.
In a video of his Frankenstein-esque creation, McGurrin, asks Alexa about the weather. The skull cocks its head from side to side as its bulging eyeballs stare at nothing in particular, all while answering the question using the familiar feminine robotic voice. The scene feels like a horror movie mashed up with the weather channel.
No surprise the experiment is titled Project Yorick, likely a reference to the dead court jester from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, whose skull is exhumed by a gravedigger.
Commenters weighted in with their thoughts on the talking robo-monster.
Some suggested McGurrin should change the voice to something more suitable, like the Crypt Keeper, while others noted the resemblance to the aliens in Mars Attack.
On his blog, McGurrin writes in detail the steps it took to make his creepy, yet useful, creation.
The future has certainly arrived.
