What is it with mankind's desire for control? Since the beginning of humanity men controlled one another, asserting dominance due to gender, race, wealth, and brute strength. The more resources a man controls, the more powerful he is, therefore the more worthy of a human being he is. That is how life has always been. For hundreds of years, the white race asserted their dominance over others by enslaving anyone with different colored skin. We were always looking for convenience, and how we could get others to do the work that we ourselves are too lazy to do. Now slavery has been abolished for over a hundred years, and yet yesterday at approximately 8 A.M., we just got a step closer to personal slaves. All of this time, society has just been working its way back to having others do their work for them. Yesterday, millions worldwide stood in freezing cold lines wrapped around phone carrier storefronts in order to purchase the latest and greatest in technology: the iPhone 4s.
Originally, I was not extremely interested in getting this phone. It just didn't seem like it was that dramatically different from the iPhone 4 which I already possessed. That was, until I met Siri. One of the most highly anticipated improvements of the iPhone 4s is the voice command system. It was said to supposedly make it easier to send texts, surf the web, and place calls hands free. I was skeptical at first, but when my entire family was talking to their Siri's (the voice control system) all morning over breakfast, I knew that this wasn't just a new convenience. Siri is not only programmed to send texts and place calls that you ask her to, but she is also programmed to answer math questions, give you updated weather forecasts, etc. This makes surfing the web all the more personal. Siri will answer questions with remarks such as "I am only here to serve you." She is the embodiment of modern technology, and we have programmed her to be as close to a slave as is legal in this country.
How much is too much? Is technology taking over our lives when we're talking to an automated phone voice all day? A voice programmed to do and say anything you tell it to do. No doubt the technology is still flawed, and of course, Siri is not a human being. But somehow, commanding technology to do as we say through our voices scares me a little bit. All of this time over these years since slavery has been abolished, mankind has just been trying their very hardest to revert back to having someone under their command to do whatever they say whenever they say it, and now these Siri programs have gotten us that much closer. Now I am not going to deny it, Siri is seriously cool. I'm very impressed with how well the voice recognition software works and how much she can really do. However, it makes me just a bit frightened for the future, and what's to come. Is it true what they've said for years; that technology will become so smart that eventually, instead of us controlling it, it will control us as a species? Who's to say?
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