Some Alexa-enabled smart devices already have cameras. But a robot body would be new.

Prasad’s comments suggest that work could be in service of one day giving Alexa a body — although he wouldn’t confirm this directly.

Prasad works on natural language processing and other machine learning capabilities for Alexa, so if he wanted to test these features out, he’d be one of the few Amazon employees who could easily go ahead and try it.

Giving smart assistants cameras and physical bodies would grant them more data on the world around them and help build what we might consider “common sense”, potentially making them more intelligent and more capable of performing complex tasks that require visual context and other important data human brains take for granted.

Of course, if Alexa learns too much about you, it could one day decide that you have no right to live and smother you with a pillow while you sleep.