“Siri is making feminists and abortion advocates angry. That means Apple is doing something right,” Brian Caulfield writes for Forbes.
“‘It is disappointing to read that a tool like Siri is missing the mark when it comes to providing information about such personal health issues as abortion care and contraception,’ NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan wrote a letter to Apple Chief Executive Officer Wednesday,” Caulfield writes. “Apple’s Cook responded quickly. ‘These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone, it simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better and we will in the coming weeks,’ Cook wrote.”
Caulfield writes, “Whether or not Siri’s programmers think about women very much, feminists are thinking a lot about Siri. The fact Apple is getting this kind of response means Siri’s engineers got something right. They made people care. With luck, Apple will find Siri in the middle of more conversations like this.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple says Siri’s abortion answers are a glitch – December 1, 2011
Apple’s Siri stumbles over an abortion question – November 30, 2011
What’s a right-wing religious nutcase doing writing for Forbes? Repulsive woman-hater.
Some people hold the view that an abortion is not ‘killing’ a baby but rather a developing mass of differentiating tissue that cannot survive on its own. I would agree that a fetus is genetically distinct from its mother and father. By saying that it cannot survive on its own it is implied that a fetus must be alive to begin with in order to keep on living. One life is dependent on another. So a fetus is both genetically unique and living. It is most definitely human. So a fetus is simply a person at an early stage of development. Ending this life is killing because a fetus is alive and a genetically unique person. If a fetus is genetically unique, it can be considered to have its own body and it is not THE body of its mother even though it is connected to the body of the mother through an interface. I am not a biologist by trade so I cannot comment on the interface between a baby and its mother. The baby – mother interface does not matter in this argument at all. I would agree to the common argument that women should have the right to do with their bodies as they please, but a fetus is clearly not the body of the mother. It has its own distinct genetic makeup. A fetus is a separate distinct individual who, in the course of normal human development, relies on the body of the mother. The fact that fertilized eggs and fetuses can survive outside of a mother at certain stages of development proves that a fetus is not simply a part of the mother but rather is an independent individual. So a fetus = a person. The state of physical development should not be a factor in determining personhood. Many people are born with genetic variations that would be considered unusual and people continue to change and develop from the moment of conception to the moment of death. The vast majority of growth and development does occur prior to birth and in childhood, but the level of growth or rate of growth should not be used to determine personhood.
One person should not have the right to kill another person, simply because the second person depends on the first for nourishment and shelter, or because the second person is an inconvenience to the first, or because the first person can’t afford to provide for the second person, or because the first person did not want to be a mother to the second person. There is only one acceptable reason for killing anyone – to prevent a person from killing others. A baby in the womb does not qualify for that reason. Dependence on another person for nourishment and shelter should not make a baby less of a person. Being inside of a womb should not make a fetus less of a baby than a baby who lives outside of a womb. Legally speaking killing another person is called murder. Murder is not a necessary evil.
Some people say that abortion is not killing a baby. At what point of human development is a human being considered to be a human being? At what point does personhood begin? What are the requirements to be considered living? Is a fertilized egg living? Is it a single living cell with all of the genetic information required to construct a fully developed human being, given enough time and materials in a conducive environment? How much time and materials are necessary in order to be considered a person? Is a fetus genetically distinct from both of its parents? What are your criteria for determining what constitutes a human life? At what point do you consider a fetus to be a living human? At what point is not ok to kill a baby in its mother? At what point is it ok to kill a baby in its mother? Under what circumstances is it ok to kill a baby living in its mother’s womb? What justification can you make for killing a baby? Has a baby done anything to deserve death? Is it ok to kill someone if they are the product of rape? Is it ok to kill someone in order to save their mothers life? Why do babies have the legal right to life if they exist outside of a womb but they don’t have the right to live if they are still inside the mother? Do babies magically become living human beings upon their first breath of air? Is breathing air independently are pre-requisite for being considered a person? Are babies hooked up to breathing machines somewhat less human, less alive than those with fully developed lungs capable of independent breathing? Should all people be considered equal? Should we all have equal rights? Should some people be considered MORE EQUAL than others? Should people be allowed to legally CHOOSE whether or not to kill someone else and not have to face any consequences? Should people be allowed to seek help in killing someone else? Would this be considered conspiracy to commit murder? Would it be considered pre-meditation? Should people be allowed to offer their “services” to help someone kill someone else so that the murder can be committed in such a way as to not harm the person requesting the murder? What would you call such a person? An assassin? A person who has taken a solemn oath to do no harm? What about the people that funded such an “operation.” Would they be considered complicit? Would you give money to an organization that helped fund murder? Would you buy products and services from organizations who provided support or donated money to other organizations who provided murder services?
Here is what I believe on a scientific and rational basis:
Abortion is not just murder. It is pre-meditated assassination by a “doctor” at the request of a mother and paid for in some instances to some degree with taxpayer money.
Have I made any partisan statements in my argument? Have I made any sectarian or religious statements in my argument? Have I attempted to make my argument based on scientific fact? Have I used clear concise logic? Have I based my argument on basic ethics and human rights? Have I stayed on topic and not brought up other issues regardless of how other issues might relate to this one issue?
I will make this one political statement which I firmly believe is valid based on everything I have presented here. Everyone should have equal human rights. Everyone should have the right to live. Abortion should be illegal.
only in America, only in America
People identify themselves as pro-life or pro-choice. No one claims to be anti-life or anti-choice. That shows that the two sides can’t agree on a battlefield. There will be no resolution until they discuss the same issue. That means there is no way for Siri to side-step the controversy. If she says where they are, she angers one side, if she doesn’t say where they are, she angers the other side.
I would like to point out the shocking statistic that 100% of all abortions result from a heterosexual act. Perhaps it is not a sin to choose heterosexuality, but a sin to act on it.
(Ouch! I bit my tongue by accident. It was in my cheek.)
It looks like complete nonsense and you just want to stick to something. Feminists, I don’t understand you a little. You get into such little things and I want to see the right answers from everyone. The only thing I agree with is not in abortion. But nowadays the attitude in modern society to them changes a lot and vice versa and this is shown in the article https://www.medicalopedia.org/8733/attitude-to-abortion-in-modern-society/ You just look at how things can change quickly. But this does not mean that you always have to look for answers in Siri, it is better to talk to your loved ones about it, rather than with the robot.