iBortion

Abortion is a big, messy topic and I absolutely intend to write a very detailed discussion about it someday, but for now let's talk about something 'Abortion-related'.

As you may or may not have heard, the flagship feature of Apple's new iPhone 4S "Siri" is a really fucking awesome piece of machine wizardry that you can use to do pretty much anything- including fight with your spouse (NSFW).

Part of the fun of Siri has become asking her obtuse, weird, mean-spirited, or dirty questions to see what she says back- the programmers at Apple (Well, the programmers at Siri) are obviously well aware that humans are almost universally filthy-minded pricks whose first response to any new system or situation is to test what it can and can't do.

Well it turns out that Siri is having trouble providing details on nearby abortion clinics but occasionally directs people to Anti-Choice clinics, and Pro-Choice groups have immediately started blasting Apple as forcing Pro-Life views on users.

NO. That is FUCKING STUPID.

Let's consider for a second how much Siri is capable of. She can find you Sushi restaurants, understands when you speak to her colloquially, can find your friends, and even more. She has access to essentially unlimited information, and as long as her information is good she'll never steer you wrong. However, just like GPS devices, it's simply not possible to keep a system 100% up-to-date with everything everywhere at all times and sometimes things slip through- My girlfriend is fond of telling a story where, on our way back from Calgary in her Dad's van I began yelling at the Nav for demanding I make a left turn where every sign at the intersection was clear making a left would cause certain death. Also, I'm always hearing stories about people who follow their GPS right ON TO RAILROAD TRACKS. Nice.

Additionally, as a statement of fact, Anti-Abortionists tend to have more aggressive PR and they take advantage of every available avenue of advertising. This means that when Siri can't find any information on clinics where you can stop by for a quick Abortion on your Pro-Choice Rewards card, she likely broadens the search for 'clinic' and 'abortion' in a general sense and provides you with whatever turns up; in this case, the clinics that shout from the rooftops about how great at they are at not giving abortions. She is incapable of considering context, and Occam's Razor (to me) suggests that it's more likely somebody didn't consider this scenario while they were building her than Apple wants you to breed more iBabies for them to sell phones to.


So what did we learn? That a massive super-intelligence programmed by humans might not be completely perfect. IF ONLY THERE WERE SOME KIND OF PRECEDENT FOR THAT *COUGH* SKYNET *COUGH*