Apple iPhone 4S Siri — Is It Good or Evil?
By now you’re probably seen at least one of the new TV commercials for Siri, a voice recognition feature and electronic personal assistant application for the Apple iPhone 4S.
When watching the TV commercials and seeing the information on Apple’s website, a different perspective comes to mind. Sure, it’s great to have evolving and innovative technology at such an impressive development rate, but is this particular advancement really appropriate for the general public?
I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, so go ahead and check out the TV commercial and we’ll discuss it one step at a time.
Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial
After watching the Apple iPhone 4S Siri commercial, such a product seems so sinister in more ways from one. This ranges from the conspiracy theory of complete information domination to the dumbing down of America as a whole.
Let’s take a closer look at the TV commercial and see if it plays into conspiracy and even apocalyptic fears.
Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial — Meet Siri, your new master.
Here’s how it looks. With just the push of a button followed by a voice command, or question, the new Siri feature springs into life, assisting you in every electronic way possible. I’m a little surprised that it doesn’t have an all-knowing, glowing red eye instead of the microphone icon. Then again, an icon like that would really look sinister. The way that Siri is presented scares me enough without fears of computers declaring war on mankind and taking over the world.
Personally, I would have chosen a better phrase rather than, “What can I help you with?” This is preposition stranding, a poor style of grammar that’s unfortunately very popular with today’s generally uneducated society. Well, that may not be the best description. Most people are still fairly smart. It’s just that basic skills aren’t given priority anymore as people rely more and more for technology to fill those gaps. Getting back to this example, I would have gone with a better worded question such as, “How may I assist you?”
Maybe with many people today, a simple “What up?” or ” ‘Sup dog?” would be more appropriate.
Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial — Asking about appointments.
Here we have a mom busy getting her daughter ready for school. Oh, but she desperately needs to know about her appointment schedule right this very moment! How oh how will she know her appointments during this early morning time crunch?
Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial — Siri saves the day!
Just when all hope was lost and the mom was about to check her appointment calendar manually, Siri was able to tell her about her meetings. Whew! That was a close one there! The mom almost had to do something for herself. Should it be disturbing that the iPhone app also gives you an opinion as well as your search results? What happens if it gets angry?
Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial — I need directions! HELP!
This next example has an unshaven man seeking walking directions to a hotel. The nearest store with a map might be all the way across the street. It might be bothersome to ask a hotel clerk, taxi driver, delivery man, policeman, or ordinary pedestrian for directions. It could even take a few minutes to manually search for the address with Google Maps. He needs to save every second here as he intends on walking to his destination.
How will this poor guy find his way to the hotel in a speedy and ultra convenient manner???
Will he have to use some brain power and find a solution himself???
Can the batteries last long enough for him to navigate the incredibly challenging streets of New York City???
Tune in next week and see if our hero can successfully find a walking path through New York City and find his way to a hotel!
Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial — Siri saves the day!
Just before all hope was lost for a quick way to find directions and Mr. Lazy was forced to use some effort, Siri saved the day! The feature understood his voice command and used the Google Maps interface to save him a few moments of pushing buttons and issuing commands himself. What a lifesaver that was!
Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial — Listening to texts while walking.
The next example has what appears to be a business man out for a walk. We’ll assume that he stepped out for lunch and is heading back to work. What we do know is that he’s walking and needs to know about a text message that he received. Instead of glancing down at his phone, he chooses instead to have the Siri feature read him the text messages.
Now that’s convenience for ya!
Whether this is realistic or not is a different story. Seeing people stare at their phones while shopping in stores, attending parties, and even on vacation tells me that many of them can handle the art of walking while sending and reading texts without any major problems. That is, as long as nobody is talking to them, standing in their way, or if there are any obstructions, clowns, or innocent animals in his or her path. Just stand clear as a person focuses on their phone instead of their surroundings.
Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial — Oh great and almighty phone, do YOU think it’ll snow today?
The local television channels are useless. The Weather Channel is temporarily off the air. The Internet weather websites are ALL down. How will little Billy ever find out if it’ll snow today? Seeing how little Billy is still dressed in his bedtime attire, he’s probably more interested in knowing if it’ll snow enough to close school for the day. I’d love to see if Siri can dig deep enough into the wonders of the Internet and actually know about local school closings.
In the meantime, how will little Billy ever know today’s weather forecast? Is he supposed to guess if it’ll snow? What is this, the 1990s?
Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial — Siri saves the day!
Just as little Billy was about to start whining to his mom about the possibility of snow, Siri came through and gave him good news. Then again, it’s only about a 40% chance of snow throughout the day, so the dreams of building massive snowmen and snow forts may have to be put on hold. Maybe a better question for the almighty Siri iPhone 4S feature would have been, “Do you think we’ll have any snow accumulation today?” I’m pretty sure the information for that question could easily be found in a variety of sources including TV and the Internet. It’s all about taking the effort and few moments to seek it.
Now little Billy just needs an iPhone app that will carry home his textbooks and complete his homework assignments while he plays video games.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The first thing that popped into my mind after viewing the commercial was an outstanding movie (or really a set of movies) that involved supercomputers becoming trusted, self-aware of their surroundings, and then ultimately using hunter-killer robots to destroy the remains of humanity.
Cyberdyne Systems preshow in “Terminator 2 3D: Battle Across Time” at Universal Studios Hollywood & Florida.
Granted, the iPhone 4S and Siri don’t have the ability to use weapons against its users —– yet —– but the comparisons are amusing. If Google and Apple join forces and create something similar to Skynet, then you’ll know that it’s time to panic.
Conspiracy Theory #1 – Dumbing down of society
It’s no secret that people today (at least in this country) appear to be becoming dumber as a whole as they focus more on certain areas, whether it’s job related, or, more commonly, anything that involves the music and entertainment industries. People are losing their basic skills in a variety of areas. Parents are becoming less intelligent and more and more of them are becoming unable to help teach their kids.
You can point your finger at a variety of reasons why this is happening, from politics to the media to even darker conspiracies. That part really doesn’t matter. The problem is that it is happening, and more importantly, fewer and fewer people seem to care about fixing the problem. For many politicians, the answer is to lump society into a whole and just keep lowering the standards for everybody, allowing more and more people to keep advancing to the next level.
So along comes the latest and greatest version of Apple’s incredibly popular iPhone, and now there are advertisements for a feature that tries to make life for the average person a little bit easier. Notice how the application really wasn’t necessary for any of those examples. If people could just set aside a moment or two, then all of the solutions could have easily been discovered with very little effort. Thanks to the Internet, smart phones, and affordable data plans for many users, virtually anybody can use the tools and find solutions without much assistance.
But along comes this magical feature that allows you to speak to it, and it will find the answers for you. Just sit back and let your mind wander as the phone application does what you should be doing. And in the process of doing so, you, the person using the smart phone, slowly (and ironically) become dumber and more helpless as machines and programs tend to your daily tasks and problems.
It’s one thing for incredibly busy people to have assistance like a secretary and even appointment reminders to assist them throughout the day. No problem there. But when the average person can find time to watch the crappiest of reality shows on television but not enough time to do a basic Internet search, then you know that society as a whole has problems. Phones with features like Siri are just one of many steps that will ultimately lead to many people being completely dependent on their cellular phones and unable to function without them in society.
Conspiracy Theory #2 – Control of information
I’ll keep this one short.
What happens when companies like Google and features like Google Maps decide to omit results or send you to alternate destinations instead of showing you the true search results? Are you just going to assume that each search result is 100% accurate? Do you also only get your national news from one of the major news channels?
You may ask Siri a simple question like, “Where can we eat some chicken wings?” but if the search results are corrupted and/or biased, then you may as well walk around with blinders on your head and following the carrot dangling from a stick. The rest of us will wear tin foil hats so Siri can’t read our thoughts.
As more and more people are “trained” to use only one search engine, and when the people maintaining and updating that one search engine have a bias towards one subject or another, your search results WILL be controlled so that you see only what THEY want you to see.
Think it can’t happen?
One of the more infamous Google Bombs a few years ago was the appearance of former US President George W. Bush at the TOP of a results listing when searching for the word “failure.” That’s a prime example of control of information and political bias, my friends.
Personally, I think that the technology behind Siri is pretty cool. It’s amazing how quickly cell phones have advanced over the past ten years. The fact that people go nuts for such technology is also impressive, whether you’re a fan of it or not. But such advances also have their dark side, whether it’s intentional or not.
Remember, folks, just because technology is capable of making our lives easier does not mean that it should turn humans into useless piles of sludge. Use your brain. Take a few moments and put some effort into daily tasks. As Calvin’s dad always says, “It’ll build character.”
If not . . .
Dah da da duh dah!
——————————-
All of the Apple iPhone 4S Siri TV commercial images were screenshots of an Apple TV commercial still available on YouTube. For more product information, please visit the company’s website, http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html