With the release of the iPhone 4S, a whole new type of technology became available to Apple product enthusiasts. An application called “Siri” was built into the device, and it has been aweing critics and users alike with its seemingly human capabilities.
Siri is a voice-activated application that is programmed into the iPhone 4S. A person needs only to talk into his or her phone, and Siri will complete the request to the best of its ability. The shocking thing is just how great this ability is. One can request things as broad as, “are there any Italian restaurants in the Manhattan area?” or as specific as, “Text Sarah ‘I cannot come to dinner tonight,’” and Siri will find the specific results or complete the request quickly and thoroughly.
An app called Siri existed in the past for Apple products, but it has since been taken out of the Apple store in what can best be hypothesized as a ploy to get people to purchase the newest version of the iPhone. The advance in technology is efficient, useful and admirable to say the least. There is no denying that creating a voice-activated system with as few issues as Siri is a massive accomplishment. But we have to look at the possible dark side of this technological advance, too, and more specifically, what it will mean for the future of people on this planet.
It is alarming just how fast the world has made progress in the field of social networking devices in just the past decade or so. It was not so long ago when computers were just coming into our households and the first cellphones were being marketed. Now we are entering an era in which we don’t even have to type our requests into search engines to get results. We simply have to talk into a device, and any questions we have can be answered.
The benefits of this technology are clear, and the drawbacks are considerably less of a concern in most people’s minds. However, this could very well be the first step in a dangerous direction for our technological devices. Who’s to say that we won’t soon rely on technology to teach us everything we find important, thus making the educational system we have now virtually useless and compromising the opportunities we have to interact with each other?
With each new advance we make in the field of technology, we could unknowingly be following a path that will lead us to complete reliance on computers and the intelligence they possess. Of course at the moment applications and programs such as Siri can only be seen as a convenient and efficient method of collection information and social networking. But what people need to bear in mind is that technology may not always be used for the same innocent, recreational uses that it is utilized for now. We have to limit our reliance on these devices to stay independent and to value our own abilities. We must remind ourselves that technology is nothing more than a supplement to a human’s work ethic and capability.
