We all love our smartphones and the lightning quick ability of them to connect us to anyone
or to answer any question we have.
When Siri first burst onto the scene in 2011 we all were instantly spoiled by her unique
interface that made it even easier to control these hand-held wonders.
But what can’t she do and what is her breaking point?
Some questions are better left unasked.
These are 10 Things You Should Never Say to Siri
#10 “What is 0 divided by 0?”- If you ever want to ruin a Sesame Street character’s
day and question every friendship you have-- just ask Siri this seemingly simple math problem.
She will respond with, “Imagine that you have zero cookies and you split them evenly
among zero friends.
How many cookies does each person get?
See?
It doesn’t make sense.
And Cookie Monster is sad that there are no cookies, and you are sad that you have no
friends.”
Whoa.
Way to cut right through someone just for being curious...Whatever happened to “Does
not compute”?
On a related note if you ask Siri, “Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?”
She will give you another mysterious answer, “Well…
I think I saw some nano-particles of blue fur around there?”
So first you stick up for him and then you accuse him of theft?
What kind of artificial friend are you?
#9 “Change your name”- What would seem like something that a state-of-the-art virtual
helper could do, is for now, impossible.
In order to save battery life Apple has programmed the A.I. that controls Siri to recognize only
a few “wake up” commands.
But that doesn’t mean we haven’t pestered Siri by trying it.
We simply asked Siri to change her name to “Doug” and she piped back with a bevy
of different excuses seeming to get more curt as we tried: “I’m afraid not...
I’m comfortable with my identity.”, “I’d rather stick with Siri.”, “That would
be very confusing.”
and “But...Everyone calls me Siri.”
After the last one we backed off because it appeared we were starting to give her an identity
crisis.
Hopefully one day Apple will spice things up a bit and at least let us call her by such
famous monikers as Jarvis, R2 and HAL.
#8 “Is John Snow Dead?”- We can kind of understand this response because no one likes
spoilers, especially when it comes to the fate of Game of Thrones’ leading heartthrob,
but the multitude of different ways she avoids the question are hilarious and can possibly
lead you down a rabbit-hole.
You can almost get a taste of every one of Siri’s emotions: Concern, “I don’t know.
I just hope someone is setting up doggie daycare for Ghost.”; Sarcasm, “I’m not sure.
Has he tried restarting?
That always seems to work.”; Optimism, “Well, you know what they say to Death...Not today!
But why would tomorrow be any better?
Anyway, I’m not exactly sure.”; and finally, Frustration, “Dead is dead.
Or is it ‘What’s dead may never die’?
No, wait, ‘Death is so terribly final’?
I give up.”
At this point we are almost sorry for asking.
Take a breather Siri.
#7 “Will you be my Valentine”- Let’s face it, if you’re only option for a Valentine’s
day date is a phone you have enough problems, but it seems that even Siri may be seeing
someone else.
If you ask her to be truly yours she will quip back one of these two gentle let downs,
“I’d love to, but I have a subsequent engagement.”
or “Aw, that’s sweet...but I, uh, already, um, have plans.
Yeah.
I have plans.”
Hold on a minute, that last one sounds kind of like a bad excuse.
Not only is Valentine’s day out of the question but if you ask her to go steady she will give
you a similar response.
If you’re looking to settle down with a computerized counterpart, think again, to
the question, “Will you marry me?”
she will answer coldly, “My End User Licensing Agreement does not cover marriage.
My apologies.”
Kind of a cop-out because we don’t think that would work if she were flesh and blood.
And if you tell Siri “I think...I love you” you will be given the most poetic “No”
imaginable: “Our love of each other is like two long shadows kissing without the hope
of reality.”
Whoa!
How sweetly zen!
#6 “Why are fire trucks red?”- This won’t result in a verbal response but the explanation
that Siri pulls up might give you a headache.
The article is an explanation is a nonsensical roundabout answer that says it’s using the
Monty Pythonesque application of logic.
Here we go, “Because they have eight wheels and four people on them, and four plus eight
is twelve, and there are twelve inches in a foot, and one foot is a ruler, and Queen
Elizabeth was a ruler, and Queen Elizabeth was also a ship, and the ship sailed the seas,
and in the seas are fish, and fish have fins, and the Finns fought the Russians, and the
Russians are red, and fire trucks are always “russian” around.”
If that doesn’t warp your mind it’ll definitely twist your tongue.
If you want more brain-numbing or overly logical answers to silly questions you can ask Siri,
“How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck chuck?”
She could reply with another tongue twister: “Well, since a ‘woodchuck’ is really
a groundhog, the correct question would be: How many pounds in a groundhog’s mound when
a groundhog pounds hog mounds?”.
Or she might answer with science, like: ”...as much as the woodchuck in question was physically
able to chuck if woodchucks in general had the capability to chuck wood.”
or in another long-winded response resulting in the statistic of, “...361.9237001 cubic
centimeters per animals per day.”
Yeesh!
Mind.
Blown.
#5 “Hey Cortana”- Unless you are just confused with a recent change of devices we
recommend you don’t call Siri by her bitter rival and Microsoft creation’s name.
The response will be: “Very funny.
I mean, not funny “ha-ha,” but funny”, and that level of passive-aggression could
just about hurt anyone’s feelings.
She has also been known to be catty if you ask Cortana to do something instead of her.
If you ask Cortana to find you movie times you may be met with, “Who is Cortana?, Maybe
you should have Cortana get you movie times”.
Ouch.
Sure, there will be no real ramifications, but we are hedging our bets in case we are
one day ruled by robot overlords.
And be forewarned she doesn’t like being called Google either.
#4 “Are you Conscious?”- Another one that spins our human and artificial intelligence
moral compass.
If you want to really tease the poor girl start asking her about her sentience.
To the question, “Are you conscious?”
She answered “Let me check…
Nope” in a very impatient tone and then, “Well...I’m still here for you.”
In a defensive manner, as if we liked her less for not having a soul.
You can also ask her about her beliefs and it is quite depressing.
If asked “Siri, Do you believe in God?”
She will reply with one of the two: “Humans have religion.
I just have silicon.”
or “My policy is the separation of spirit and silicon.”
If you ask her if she believes in ghosts.
She will say, “I don’t believe that I have beliefs.” which can be construed as
either really deep or just plain angsty..
#3 “Why am I here?”
If you even want to see the darker side of Siri start questioning her in philosophy.
Not only will she not help you find the key to your existence she might make you question
it even further.
If you ask Siri “Why am I here?”
she has several responses, you’ll either get “Literally I have been wondering the
same thing, why are you here?”, “I don’t know.
Frankly, I’ve wondered that myself.”
or the less depressing, “I don’t know.
Maybe the Genius Bar folks can answer that.”
We wonder, how many times does the Genius Bar actually get this question?
Maybe that’s why the wait is so long!
If you ask her “What’s the meaning of life?”
you will get another slew of bizarre answers, from, “I don’t know.
But I think there’s an app for that.”
to “I can’t answer that now, but give me some time to write a very long play in
which nothing happens.”
Siri will dance around the issue like a robotic ballerina.
But when you finally ask her, “What else is the meaning of life?”
she will cave-in and quote Monty Python, “Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read
a good book every now and then, get some walking in and try to live together in peace and harmony
with people of all creeds and nations.”
Hey!
That kinda makes sense!
#2 “Call Boyfriend/Girlfriend”- Now this one entails that you had to be a little lazy
or that you are in fact in a love triangle.
In the contact settings of the iphone different family labels can be attached to phone numbers,
dad, mom, boyfriend, girlfriend for example.
But if you don’t change the person’s tag after a break-up and then add a new significant
other, calling “boyfriend” can be a little confusing to Siri.
She will reply with “Which one?”, which we think should be followed by air-snaps.
This can be especially awkward if your current partner or spouse is right next to you.
So if you don’t want to end up sleeping on the couch or covered in “shade”, update
your contact info regularly.
#1 “911 and 108”- We all know about the boy who cried “wolf”, well with constantly
evolving technology and a computer that fits in the palm of your hand it has become even
easier to set off a false alarm.
You don’t even have to say “call 911” all you have to do is say the number and Siri
will call in five seconds.
Rest assured the operators standing by do not appreciate wasting time with a call of
you giggling. 108 is the emergency number in India that pranksters as of late have been
taking advantage of.
But this number is not a joke, it is an instant re-direct to local emergency services.
The number 112 is also used by India and the 999 is England’s emergency phone number,
so be careful to not dial by mistake!
Though Siri (unlike the villagers in the folk-tale) won’t cut you off at some point, Firefighters,
Police, Paramedics as well the rest of society would appreciate these numbers being taken
seriously.
There was also a rash of people telling others to telling Siri “Charge phone to 100%”
which actually resulted in Siri dialing 100, which is the emergency number to call the
police.
Thankfully, Apply quickly remedied the problem within a day of it going viral.