Apple’s Siri: the latest innovation of man and machine, the built-in, natural speaking, intelligent personal assistant for the iPhone 4S. You use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. Siri is incredibly complex and understands your natural speech, asking you questions if it needs more information to complete a task. It’s not a dictation tool – it is an interactive experience that creates a new level of fundamental change in our relationship with inanimate objects.
How did we find ourselves here? When did a relationship with a machine become so important that it has made the iPhone 4S the best selling iPhone Apple has ever introduced? How, in a world now with 7 billion people, are we talking to our machines as if they are human beings?

The last 20 years have socially changed us in many ways. How we make friends, gossip, share personal information, send a love note, recommend music, raise money, plan events, etc. Our personal lives have drastically changed to where they are now intertwined with machines, not through machines.
Machines used to be passive utility tools. Now it is considered acceptable and even normal to talk to your phone to make an appointment, post personal information about myself and connect with family and friends. That’s not passive, that’s participatory.
It’s a Siri-ous problem. And getting more so by the day. Care to share your Siri-situation with us?