Why Siri is already a revolution...

[Bernard SG]

People who have the feature refer to Siri as 'she' or 'her'.
I believe it's the first ever real-life computerized system that so many people perceive as a person.
Apple did it ...

 

[bcbryanc]

I call it a she, lol.

 

[boss.king]

I think that's just because the voice is feminine. People tend to refer to gendered things by their gender.

 

[gillybean]

If IBM Watson (that Jeopardy bot) had a clearly gendered avatar, I'm sure people would have called it a "he" or "she"

 

[mrsir2009]

True. No one calls the crummy Mac OSX voice recognition service a he or a she... Although its probably because you can change the voice

 

[Bernard SG]

I think that's just because the voice is feminine. People tend to refer to gendered things by their gender.

Well, sure... I wonder if in UK they call it 'he' by the way... But my point is that everyone knows it's not a person, I find it striking that I rarely see people referring to Siri as "it".

 

[aldo82]

Uh? Everyone I know has a name for their sat nav and calls them he or she. Many people have a name for their car too...

 

[mrsir2009]

Uh? Everyone I know has a name for their sat nav and calls them he or she. Many people have a name for their car too...

...And their MacBook Pro's

 

[boss.king]

Well, sure... I wonder if in UK they call it 'he' by the way... But my point is that everyone knows it's not a person, I find it striking that I rarely see people referring to Siri as "it".

I don't see that's how that's a revolution though. People have been referring to their voice assisted GPSs as 'her' and 'she' for years now. It's nothing new. On further thinking, it may also have to do with Siri talking back to you as opposed to it just taking orders like other voice commands on phones did in the past.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't see what your point is.

 

[Bernard SG]

I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't see what your point is.

Okay then, never mind
I'm not sure myself, it's just like an intuition that there's going to be a 'before' and an 'after' Siri.
From the outside, there's something quite peculiar in the way people who have actually used Siri are talking about it (or about 'her', more exactly ) it's nothing like with the previous iterations of iphone or when iPad was launched.

 

[Yumunum]

Right from the man herself

 

[iBlue]

People refer to ships as she and her and a ship is even less feminine than a female voice.

Siri responds to you with that voice. It's not such a reach for people to refer to it as a she/her.

 

[BlindMellon]

Sad, really.