Is The iPhone’s Siri Misleading Women Who Need Emergency Health Services?

[chaya]

“What may I help you with?” So begins Siri - the unique voice-activated assistant of the iPhone 4s that promises to deliver accurate and tailored answers for your every need. Unless you’re a woman in search of health services like birth control, emergency contraception, abortion, or even mammogram tests. Then the interactive search wizard draws a

Comments

[doverz]

Oh wow. I wanted to get a new iPhone at the end of December, but I'm squicked out right now. Looks like I should start looking into other smartphones.

[chaya]

I strongly feel like I want independent (or ontd_p member will do just fine) verification. If there's concrete evidence that Siri's programmed to avoid real women's clinics then there is a serious problem.

[doverz]

Yeah, that's what I meant. If there's independent verification, I will be looking for another smartphone.

[carmy_w]

FWIW, I love my Droid!

[pageup]

I disabled siri. The idea sort of weirded me out, plus I just know it's going to have issues with my accent.

wolfram's answer to "what is Birth control?"

[fenris_lorsrai]

Definition: limiting the number of children born

Image:
(shows standard Pill pack)

Synonyms: birth prevention, family planning

Narrower terms:
(too lazy to type them all)

Broader terms:
planning

Other notable uses:
Internet domains:
birthcontrol.com, birthcontrol.info, birthcontrol.net

Texting form:
BC

Anagrams:
none

Re: wolfram's answer to "what is Birth control?"

[fenris_lorsrai]

and looking at the suggested domains, the first two provide info on birth control, the third is a parked domain with ads.

[benjersthefish]

Seriously?

Siri is still in beta.

[xballroomblitz]

this,

and I find/found it difficult to locate an "actual" abortion clinic verses a "crisis pregnancy centre" by just googling it. How can you expect a program to find something like that?

[benjersthefish]

Exactly. This article is reaching.

[maynardsong]

But...but...but...quit getting in the way of my outrage!

[carolpent]

I tried typing in the questions she used, but Wolfram Alpha just seemed to interpret "birth control" and gave me statistics for worldwide use. The same with abortion. I don't know as it's programmed to be of much use for finding things.

Siri searches Yelp as well, apparently. Yelp does seem to have a doctor's section, and when I put in "abortion provider" for Boston it came up with Planned Parenthood, but it did not do the same for Washington.

And just as a control, I put "good restraunts in Boston" into Wolfram Alpha and it told me the prevalence of the surname "Good" in Boston. So I don't think it's really a matter of bias.

[carolpent]

And spelling "restaurants" correctly gave the same result. As did just putting in "restaurants in boston."