Siri cont'd

There are actually several Siris in our lives; my wife has two. One is an Australian guy who doesn't have a clue about the streets around this small Illinois town. I bite my tongue as he leads her to go west a half a block when we're going east. You're listening to this Australian guy instead of me? Whatever. I don't want to be speaking over him, or confusing the issue, so I just shut up. It's only half a block.

But it seems that my method, knowing the streets so you know which way is fastest, is rapidly going out of style. She'll use Siri even when she's been somewhere several times, knows the streets full well, and should be able to go there blindfolded, so to speak. She'd rather have this Australian guy telling her when to turn right, how far ahead, what to look out for, etc.

There are actually a couple of interesting things about the Siri trend, besides the fact that we as a population become a lot dumber about east-west, north-south, better roads for through-travel, etc. One is that theoretically Siri should be able to pick up on a traffic jam, an accident, in our case a train, etc., and warn us. I left Chicago one night and a simple 20-minute commute out to the southwest suburbs became forty minutes, because of some accident which couldn't be avoided I'm sure but which, if Siri were onto it, and I were on Siri, I could have gone around. I think it's just a matter of time before the overhead satellites pick up on these things and the premium Siris will be able to tell us, Sox game, accident, road closure, whatever. There's no reason they can't be up to the minute.

But as for a population that doesn't know from east, I'm not sure I can live with that. If people are really so clueless that they can't get home without technology, that doesn't bode well, because I am still old-fashioned enough to believe that all technology is simply an aide, a helper, and not meant to replace real awareness of where you are and how it relates to the area transportation hub.

When you're driving a 13-foot high truck and come to an 11-foot bridge, you should know that Siri has let you down, and simply failed to take into account the fact that this particular route was not made for 13-foot trucks. Siri cannot entirely be blamed for not having all this stuff programmed into her/him and I think it's only a matter of time before all this stuff will be programmed into him/her. This includes icy conditions, wind, and the kinds of things that should just simply warn you to get off the road. If my wife wants to hear it from an Australian chap that shouldn't bug me so much as he's just as capable of relaying the collective knowledge as anyone, though I suspect the collective knowledge isn't quite there yet. Siri doesn't know the low bridges, the bad road conditions, or the Sox games yet. But he/she will, it's only a matter of time. And that changes the whole traffic equation. It basically means that, say, on that forty-minute trip out of Chicago, only those of us who don't have Siri will still be on that road. All the others will simply go around, one way or the other, and save the rest of us the bottleneck. It'll be a better world. When everyone has Siri, the yellow-jackets will simply be able to clear out the accident, without the rubberneckers or the anger of people who've been backed up for half an hour. That will be a better world as well.

Almost as good as effective public transportation, which I guess is too much to ask for, at least in my lifetime.

Siri

What happens when a whole culture of people decide to stop worrying about where things are, and instead rely on Siri to just get them from one place to another? I'm serious, your responsibility ends with typing in your destination, you no longer have to worry about whether you've gone north, south or what to get there. Just let Siri take care of it.

Siri is often wrong, though it rarely matters that much. Siri will send you a mile or two out of the way, and that's if you're lucky, if miscommunication has not cost you more. Sometimes Siri knows what he/she is doing yet there are communication issues betwen you. Sometimes it's just plain wrong.

My wife never had a clear concept of north, east, south and west anyway, so she was more than happy to cede over all route control to a computer. Even now she doesn't know which way the various states are - where's Iowa? How about indiana? They all run together for her. Siri is a godsend to her if only because Siri made it so that wasn't a problem. You could get to your destination even if you had no clue about where it actually was.

In the end though it's a scary world if you really really have no clue about where you are. I'm not even sure Siri can get you out of that jam.