“A few recent developments point to the troubling potential consequences of this situation. In August, Apple released the newest model of its massively popular iPhone, equipped with an onboard, voice-activated intelligent agent named Siri. Ask Siri anything, from “What’s the next showing of ‘Alphaville’?” to “Where can I hire a prostitute?” and she will provide up-to-the-minute, location-specific recommendations based on a quick analysis of Internet resources. In other words, she’s a search engine for nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Yet, for some reason, for the first few months after she appeared on the market Siri was unable to provide iPhone users with access to abortion services. Some iPhone owners even reported being diverted to adoption services instead. In Siri’s universe, apparently, Roe v. Wade never happened.
After an uproar from free speech and women’s rights groups, Apple apologized for the “glitch,” claiming that it was accidental, rather than ideological, in nature. Today, the problem appears to have been fixed. Yet the very fact that such a problem could make it to market, and remain unfixed weeks after it was first reported on, betrays at the very least a shameful disregard on the part of Apple for the rights and well-being of its customers. It also raises the question: What else is Siri not telling us?”
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture...ille_20120113/
“A more useful app would be for young black men to be able to map blocks with the highest risks of their being pulled over or stopped on the street by police. That phenomenon affects many more people than the rare occurrences of random violence against motorists driving through ‘bad’ neighborhoods.”
Read more - http://w.po.st/share/entry/redir?pub...arer=copypaste
After an uproar from free speech and women’s rights groups, Apple apologized for the “glitch,” claiming that it was accidental, rather than ideological, in nature. Today, the problem appears to have been fixed. Yet the very fact that such a problem could make it to market, and remain unfixed weeks after it was first reported on, betrays at the very least a shameful disregard on the part of Apple for the rights and well-being of its customers. It also raises the question: What else is Siri not telling us?”
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture...ille_20120113/
“A more useful app would be for young black men to be able to map blocks with the highest risks of their being pulled over or stopped on the street by police. That phenomenon affects many more people than the rare occurrences of random violence against motorists driving through ‘bad’ neighborhoods.”
Read more - http://w.po.st/share/entry/redir?pub...arer=copypaste
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