WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TELL SIRI 108?

Please don’t ask me this question again, because this far into the century, if you don’t know yet who Siri is, then you’ve probably served your 30 – year sentence of incarceration or you just rocketed in from planet Mars. I mean seriously, Siri was started back in the year 2010 as Apple’s virtual assistant. Whenever a user ‘barks’ out a command to their voice recognition system activated on their phone, Siri gathers this information, analyses it with trillions if not billions of relevant information on the internet, form the most logical solution and offers it right there. All this is achieved in seconds.

This is not only to mean that Siri does not assist with local phone management. By local phone management, I am referring to basic tasks like accessing your settings, opening up applications such as WhatsApp, Camera and that Candy Crush you cannot get your hands off! Other commands can range from anything from calling people when you are just too lazy to scroll through your phone, to surfing the web.

For whatever reason you intend to be assisted, Siri has to date demonstrated certain levels of unquestionable competency. It does not really matter what you are summoning Siri for, ‘she’ll’ always come through. The best part is that ‘she’ never really complains, well unless for the few times that she has to put up with rather ‘silly’ questions from users. She does this pretty well by hiding under rib – cracking sarcasm. If you are on the iOs operating system, try ‘her’ out now, go ahead and ask her what zero divided by zero is (0 ÷ 0 = ?) Carry on if you are out to get a good laugh.

Honestly, Siri has everyone catered for; even the shy individuals who develop cold feet as far as flirting with the opposite sex. Siri can comfortably flirt with you to some degree.

Personalized Siri or not?

As the planet gears up towards a more technologically dominant society, ethical dilemmas are in the loom. Take for instance having your phone track your location, understand your taste of fashion, dietary choices, workout plans, weekly schedule(s) etc. The question as to whether to share all this information on the internet arises.

Mostly the developers of these technologies champion for shared data so that they can compile them into better applications. More like involuntary cloud collaboration for lack of a better term. I guess this is why ‘they’ coined the term, “Data is the new oil” Generally user data may form a holistic view of how people around the world consume technologies.

This whole debate about whether Siri should know my personal life is really interesting. While some people prefer a more personalized Siri, others have developed cold feet about such technologies learning about them. I think both versions should exist with the user given the option to select their preference.

All the same, come what may, Siri might come in the form of a nanochip implant into our brains for a much more personalized experience. But then again, this is still in sci-fi pipeline and is yet to be realized in an undetermined timeline.

What happens when you tell Siri 108?

You see, cutting edge technologies like Siri don’t come to be without their detrimental attachments. For instance, people have had Siri get them into trouble over the recent past. One case that comes to mind was when a psychopath consulted with ‘her’ to cover up a murder. You see every time that you speak to this Artificially Intelligent (AI) System, it has an ultra-realistic voice, it is still a machine.

Besides, machines are known to back up, or at least keep a history of all the data that they interact with. What our psycho didn’t realize was that his searches were being logged in past and that is how the CIA tailed him. Depending on which side of the glass you perceive this incident from, Siri came in handy to the criminal investigation department by getting the culprit into trouble.

It was back in the year 2017 when the very first people realized that Siri had been ‘armed’ with almost all the functionalities to render the life of man easier. In fact, that is the true meaning of a machine, something that is out to make us lazy, or should I say make our work easier! Apple realized that for them to truly go global, then they had to load almost all emergency lines into their Siri basic database.

The first people to discover it apparently misused this. Telling Siri 108 automatically activates an emergency service call protocol. These include Emergency services such as the police, calling an ambulance or contacting the fire-fighting department. The number 108 is equivalent to 999 in India, or 911 in the United States of America. Other noted numbers include but are not limited to 112, 110, and 000. Depending on your geographical location, authorities will be alerted via a phone call if in case you fail to terminate the call 5 – second after ‘spitting’ the command number 108 to Siri.

The 5 – second grace period is offered to confirm that indeed you want to carry on with the call. Brace yourself if you accidentally and successfully contact the emergency services through this number. If it’s not a game, then thank Apple for always coming up with innovative ways to render the life of humans more efficient.

There are other numerous related cases to the ‘psycho-saga’ that might not have made it to the media. For instance, let us speculate for someone looking into owning unlicensed ammunition, or searching for human trafficking hubs nearby, etc. All the same, do not do a prank call with 108 with Siri. Also, be very careful to what information you ‘feed her’ with. Being mature enough to own a mobile phone should be accompanied by some level of responsibilities. Do not allow yourself to fall for the ‘108 pranks’ Don’t allow to misuse state resources with unreasonable responses.