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Where does Alexa get her answers?

Answer: Crowdsourcing!

Amazon’s digital assistant is turning to select customers to get the answers to questions she doesn’t currently know. Called Alexa Answers, the program began Dec. 6 and will invite certain customers to participate based on their history of writing reviews and using Alexa.

Once those chosen receive the notifying email, they can go to a website and enter answers of up to 300 characters for questions that Alexa received and couldn’t answer. Both questions and answers will be screened for “potentially offensive questions … [and] profane or offensive words and topics.” Alexa users will be told when they are receiving a crowdsourced answer on their device and can give it an up or down vote — too many of the latter will result in its deletion.

Kate is a senior copy editor in Northern California. She holds a bachelor's degree in English with a minor in professional writing from the University of California, Davis.