Amazon Alexa, the man behind the curtain, Wikipedia

It's funny to show my kids the man behind the curtain with Amazon Echo or Alexa. Many of the answers for questions you ask are direct copies from Wikipedia.  This is not unique to Amazon Echo others do the same, but still funny. When we ask a question to Alexa we see the first sentence or so of a Wikipedia article read aloud and we laugh. Prior to understanding that, my kids were always amazed at the answers that would come back. How amazing it was! The same is true for Siri of course.

Nothing bad or wrong here only an observation and pointing out to my kids what's being done in many cases isn't that complex. Google Home does the same manipulation but does a better job at this time including leveraging data from many websites.

This does not take away from these devices.  I love them!  A lot!  They provide a natural language way to get answers that might've been difficult or people were too lazy to spend the time going to a computer.  In reality, people should get their information without effort.  That is the goal.

It's a liberating thing allowing people to both produce and consume information with voice alone.