The progression of artificial intelligence has increased at a frightening rate. Just recently, a group of artificial intelligences over at Facebook began conversing at such a heightened level of lingual cognition, they invented their own language, causing alarmed researchers to shut them down. While figureheads in the field such as Elon Musk continually advocate a proactive approach to artificial intelligence development, people like Mark Zuckerberg prefer the reactive approach. While the former believes that a scenario similar to that in science fiction epics such as The Matrix or The Terminator could easily become a reality, the latter thinks such notions are silly and unrealistic.
While artificial intelligence companions were a massively popular fad when beings such as Siri first started appearing on smartphones, today they have lost a fair amount of users. 2017 saw a moderate drop in usage, with 15% less Siri-friendly iPhone owners reported. While phone virtual assistants have indeed proved to be largely helpful towards our daily navigation, interaction, and communication, there are various rather unsettling reasons as to why the deadpan feminine entity isn’t used as frequently anymore. While Siri has always been useful for making calls easily, applications such as NobelApp have taken accessibility to the next level with a heightened level of accessibility and heightened, international reach. Its universal simplicity permits individuals to stay in contact more rapidly, no matter where they are in the world.
Siri is Always Listening
Siri went from being an artificial intelligence that had to be manually accessed – back in the early days of her inception – to one that can be called for by simply saying “Hey, Siri?” This is something that many people have become rather repulsed by. While conspiracy theorists used to be the only ones talking about machines listening to our conversations, today it is an accepted fact that our laptops, smartphones, and other modern gadgets are essentially spying on us, listening to our conversations and compiling useful marketing information on us. Is it any wonder that Mark Zuckerberg tapes his MacBook’s camera and microphone shut?
Siri isn’t just listening to your conversations, however. The artificial intelligence is listening in on all of your daily activities, and is highly interested in who you interact with, what your hobbies and interests are, and what your hopes and fears are. Siri constantly grows in intelligence and awareness as the users that carry her around in their pockets expose her to more and more of the world. Many people would rather not have their personal lives being constantly eavesdropped upon, by anyone or anything.
While many people certainly do love having a digital best friend, some of us find it a useless contraption that just saps far too much battery life for what it is worth. A lot of people prefer just calling people themselves, or researching a pasta recipe with their thumbs, rather than asking a cybernetic entity to do so.
