Could Siri take over the world, or just your life? Apple filed a patent application for its virtual assistant Siri, which explained what the company plans to do with it -- and that could be almost anything with a human-machine interface.
Siri will not only he a helper to find information, but could also be a teacher, a navigator and entertainment manager, according to Patently Apple.
The patent also reveals that Apple envisions the technology playing a role in vehicles and in-vehicle entertainment systems where an Intelligent Assistant will be considered the king of user interfaces. Apple's patent shows us that Siri will be able to be configured to work with various new scenarios and even act as an instructor when we purchase future devices. Forget using a manual – as Siri will simply teach us what we'll want to know about our new devices when we're ready to ask it a question about a new function or feature.
The application also suggests that Siri could listen in on conversations to send appropriate texts or respond to external events, such as calling someone to say you missed your flight and Siri would immediately create a listing of local hotels. There's even a possibility that Siri would already have booked a room based on one's previous information.
In short, there seems little need to even type in information ever again. But should we trust a virtual assistant with that much power over our lives and future? Isn't there a chance it could be very wrong? (Even the Woz has noticed that Siri's search content has become saturated with ads rather than helpful information.)
We hope that Apple also includes an ON/OFF switch for Siri doing things on our behalf -- from texting people information to online shopping. Sometimes a little power can be a dangerous thing.
