I was in a restaurant when the fellow at the next table picked up his phone. “Siri!” he commanded. “Call Paul Bower!”
Oh, right, I thought. That can be done. By other people, I mean.
The first thing I do when getting a new phone or iPad is to disconnect Siri, in part because she’s so maddeningly obsequious, but mainly because she feels like cheating, a short cut to what’s already a pretty extraordinary short cut. If I want to know how many vodka tonics it might take to kill someone my older sister’s height and weight, the least I can do is type the questions into Google.
The way you talk to a person says a lot about you, of course, but so, too, does the way you talk to a device. I think of all the people I know who are using a GPS, rely on it for everything, then turn on it when they near their destination: “Will you shut up already!”
Then there are those like my friend Patsy. The two of us were driving from Nashville to Knoxville not long ago, and decided to stop midway so I could see where she went to college. “Heeey, Siri!” she said in a tone that suggested fun, “Can you get me directions to Sewanee, Tennessee?” In what seemed to me like no time at all, Siri answered, “I can’t find that.”
“The University of the South?” Patsy said. “In Sewanee, Tennessee?”
“I can’t find that.”
Patsy lowered her voice and turned to me: “She does this all the time now.”
I whispered back: “It seems to me like she’s not even trying.”
“Siri?” Patsy said. “Can you please get me directions to…” She named a town that was close to Sewanee, figuring we could make it from there to the college on our own. When Siri came back with the information, Patsy thanked her with what seemed like genuine gratitude. Mixed into it was a hint of pride, the sort you feel when you’re patient with a terribly old person, or someone who’s new on the job and hasn’t quite figured out the register.
If Siri was a person, you knew that Patsy would give her a big bonus at Christmas! And that Siri would use that money to fly home for the holidays and say, when asked about work by her parents, “My boss? She’s pretty cool. I mean, yeah, I really like her!”
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Story produced by Amy Wall. Editor: Emanuele Secci.
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