I Talked to Siri

In my previous post , I expressed my fear of the new Siri voice-recognition/life-planning feature of the iPhone 4S. I was scared of her power. Now, I'm not one who likes to be scared and remain scared. I always do my best to face any of my fears head-on, believing that most fear is bred from unfamiliarity.

So just like my previously conquered fears of riding the 22 Muni after dark without pepper spray or getting a cartilage piercing from a disgruntled teen mall employee, I manned up and confronted Siri at the downtown Apple store. I walked up to the iPhone table, where everything seemed harmless enough. For each iPhone 4S display, there was a companion iPad on which you could look up everything you need to know about the new iPhone. While I gingerly browsed the phone's new features, I heard a helpful Apple employee showing the customer next to me how to use Siri. I eavesdropped slyly as she explained to the gentleman that you just hold down the circular button to activate the Siri feature. You're then free to talk to her and ask her a question. Simple enough.

I held down the circular button just like the girl demonstrated. The screen pulled up the little purple microphone icon and it looked like it was waiting for me to say something. I felt like I was consulting a genie or a Magic 8 Ball. The pressure was on. Not sure what to ask, I blurted out the first question that popped into my mind: "Where is Samovar?" To clarify, Samovar was the tea lounge where I was going to meet my friend later on. Siri pondered my question and typed it out on the screen. She then [accurately] said there were three Samovar locations in the city. She pulled up Google maps, where she had already pinpointed all three locations.

Excited, I asked her a few more questions. Her accuracy rate of understanding my questions was about 80%. It was a noisy store, so that might explain why she misheard some of my questions. I had asked, "Where is the nearest BART?" She took my question as, "Why did we ever part?" Amusing. Meanwhile, the boneheads next to me were asking Siri stupid questions like, "Should I take my sweater off?" "Are you single?"

Ok. So Siri's not

that

scary. She seems harmless enough. At this point, she may not be smart enough yet to take over the world. But I guess we'll have to wait and see.