The idea of electronics that are designed to make our daily life easier eventually becoming self-aware is one that's long inspired and intrigued mankind. In movies we've seen this work out for humanity for better (Short Circuit, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Wall-E) and for worse (The Matrix, Screamers, The Terminator). So it's only natural that as an entertaining aspect of Apple's popular iPhone assistant, Siri should be designed to play up the idea of artificial intelligence becoming autonomous. That's sort of the whole whimsy of it right? Imaging Siri as our own little eager to please robot buddy, like 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL without the power to cut off our air supply. It's cute!...Right?
Well, The Verge has uncovered that while we've been doing that silly human activity of sleeping, she's been up watching movies. As a result, Siri can helpfully provide a film's official synopsis, but she's also happy to add her own two cents. Check out some of her opinionated summations below, and you'll notice an unsettling theme:
That's right fellow humans: just like us Siri can relate to movies...and make them entirely about herself. While this is fun Easter Egg for movie fans and tech nerds alike, I can't help but think that if this right here were a movie, this moment—the one where your handy robot personal assistant begins making off-the-cuff comments about "misunderstood cyborgs"--is the part where the music would grow dark to indicate the first sign of trouble. But it's cool. Robots becoming self-aware is the stuff of sci-fi. It's fun fiction! And like I said it's not like Siri is all moody and scary like HAL… oh shit.
