OP,
I apologize for the original comment, but when you generally see a new person come in with no other posts than negative ones... you tend to gravitate towards troll. As fanboys, on both ends, tend to think their OS is superior forums for both Android and Apple are constantly bombarded by this (as you can see by many negative posts here on these forums that have well thought out counter's that the OP's always ignore). So I'm sure you can see my train of thought.
Having said that. Going to the AI comment. I would classify Siri as a basic AI. I mean AI doesn't mean that it "thinks" persay, but it makes deductions. Sure AI's goal is to replicate the ability to think on all sort of planes, but basic AI can be defined as the ability to make deductions/responses.
So if Siri is taking your vocal pattern, and then matching it up against what you're saying via algorithms, etc, into a form it understands. Then, based on what comes back, it deduces your phrase into a means of completing an action then isn't that AI? It's taking your comment, and then determining the action based on the way you said it. This is how it determines actions, requests, etc, apart. I would classify that as AI. We're not talking military grade here, but we are talking about the ability to deduce, and choose a logical solution to your request.
As for beta. Again I see your arguments, but I also think that Siri is leaps ahead of competitors. Because of that the base for comparison is so low compared to Siri you tend to gravitate towards its strengths. Other groups do it as well, and depending on how strong the product is people either gripe or accept it.
LTE is amazingly fast and that's what most people talk about, but you don't see commericals saying it's a new product and it has issues like severe battery drain, and possible long handoffs. They ignore that, but we know the strengths so we don't yell at the companies advertising it. I took my Droid RAZR back because of the battery issues from LTE (and some things I just didn't care for in general).
I get where you're doing, though, I do. I'm sure it's in the fine print somewhere (I haven't honestly watched the commericals... HD-DVR). I just, like many others, see it as something that works much better than others and is improving. If there was a product that set the bar just as high, or higher, then people may be a bit more vocal, but it's just got a leg up on the competition.
Small update:
Apples Siri page does say Siri is in Beta.
What is Siri?
Siri is the intelligent personal assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. It allows you to use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. But Siri isn’t like traditional voice recognition software that requires you to remember keywords and speak specific commands. Siri understands your natural speech, and it asks you questions if it needs more information to complete a task.
Siri uses the processing power of the dual-core A5 chip in iPhone 4S, and it uses 3G and Wi-Fi networks to communicate rapidly with Apple’s data centers. So it can quickly understand what you say and what you’re asking for, then quickly return a response.
Siri is currently in beta and we’ll continue to improve it over time.