Amazon's AI voice assistant Alexa can be scary even after you tell her to stop, as these US kids find out when they ask her to tell a horror story during a sleepover and are terrified when she keeps going.

The three eight-year-old children from Tarrant County in Texas, two of whom have never used Alexa before, were testing her capabilities with odd or difficult questions before one asks her to tell a horror story. She begins but is cut off as the other tell her to stop.

Alexa pauses and then whispers: "Did you hear that?" sending the children into screams of panic.

My 8 year old son, Jackson, had two friends over to spend the night. Neither of them had ever used Alexa before and they were completely intrigued by her ability to answer their questions. As the boys were going to bed they started trying to stump her and get her to do cool things. One of Jackson’s friends asked her to tell them a scary story. And then all heck broke loose. The story she told wasn’t even overly scary, but the fact that she opened the story by whispering “did you hear that” sent the kids over the edge and they were genuinely completely horrified. Especially Jackson, who was the one screaming for Alexa to stop.