November 4th, 2020Kyle’s Rant

And now I have all the technology I need in the palm of my normal-sized hand. I know a lot of people have the same phone, however I don’t think they fully understand the horsepower or the shortcomings of the device.
For instance, the other day while driving, a text dropped onto my phone and I thought to ask Siri what the message was. She told me I had a new message, who it was from and after reading it asked would I like to reply. I, of course, said yes and she took my statement word-for-word including the prolonged “ummm” at the start and asked if I would like to send it. I said yes and she proclaimed message sent. All while flying down the road in the car.
Siri is short for “speech interpretation and recognition interface” so this little piece of tech I carry around has now learnt a few things about me and I about them. I would call it a her as it sounds like one, but I think a neutral pronoun better suits.

But all things with my new toy aren’t beer and skittles. We are starting a little bit of a generational grudge and I am sure that this bit of tech’s voice and mannerisms were set up by a Generation Z, someone younger than a millennial.
For instance, somehow the torch on the back of the phone came on and after half an hour of trying to turn it off, I decided to ask my pugnacious young friend to do the deed. The conversation went something like this:
Me: “Hey Siri!” They: “Aha?”
Me: “Please turn the torch off.” They: “I turn torch off.”
And like that I was in the dark even though Siri couldn’t be bothered with a complete sentence. Grrr. But there were the clues to work out who was behind the phone. After all, no-one over 23 says “Aha?” and I am sure instead of saying “You’re welcome” the little bugger would spit out that teeth-grinding line “That’s OK” with that annoying upward inflection at the end.
Siri also came undone recently when I tried to find out if I was allowed to take a photo of someone posed in the main street of town without a facemask on. She led me on a wild Google search which ended at the local vet. WTH?
I ended up simply phoning a guy from the Department of Health and Human Services, an actual human with definitive answers and was told “Yes”. So we won’t be seeing too many more facemask photos in The Local, thank God.
Sorry Siri rant over…