I am sure that by now everyone is pretty familiar with the Siri application on the iPhone 4S. In case you have been living under a cock, Siri is an application that allows you to ask your iPhone a question, and it will answer as if it were a real person. Artificial intelligence has arrived in our handheld devices, but with that comes the question: Can a smartphone be too smart?
The big debate right now is that Siri seems to be anti-abortion. Even in metropolitan areas like New York or DC, if you ask Siri where the nearest abortion clinic is she will either point you to a pro-life crisis center or refuse to recognize the request. Everybody knows that New York City is the land of one-night-stands so I am pretty sure that abortion clinics are as numerous as fake Chanel bags in Chinatown or strollers in the Upper West Side. Last time I checked, our phones were not supposed to have an opinion. Given this trajectory, here are several other things that I foresee smartphones trying to regulate in the future:
Gay Marriage: In the future, if you try to get gay-married Siri will create a force-field around your genitals to block same sex interaction. Then, if you are a gay man she will delete all your contacts with mens names (and contacts whose last name is name of the bar where you met them) and automatically RSVP you to events like “Fantasy Football night at Broseph’s.” If you are a lesbian she will delete Ellen from your DVR and cancel your tickets to the lumberjack convention.
Inter-racial Relationships: In the future, if your name is Lisa and your husbands name is Tyrone, Siri will automatically dial the phone number of the Alabama State Trooper’s and tell them that you are being robbed by a black man. Siri will then send text messages to all the men in your phone with names like Todd, Wentworth, and Adolph and try to set up dates to a KKK welcome dinner.
Non-Christian Religions: In the future, if you have anything other than a ridiculous gaudy Catholic cross as your iPhone background, Siri will auto-fill your address and contact information to every bible seller, Jehovah’s witness, and Christian reach-out program. She will then use your credit card information to order 2X4’s, gasoline, and a starter log from the nearby Home Depot and hire some laborers off Craigslist to come to your house, abduct you, and burn you at the stake as a heathen on your well manicured front lawn.
Phones and other similar devices are supposed to be tools that we use to make our lives easier. They are not supposed to have opinions, ideas, or the ability to discriminate. I don’t care if you are black, white, Asian, racist, Tara Reid (just looking for the nearest bottle of whiskey) or Tyra Banks (just looking for the nearest mirror) your phone should do what you ask you to do without question or judgement.
After all, what does it say about the state of our society when Siri will act as an accessory to a murderer, but won’t assist a rape victim who is trying to salvage her life?
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