MacRumors - Friday, September 6, 2019 at 9:17 AM
Apple Working on Siri Feature Allowing Back-and-Forth Conversations About
Health Problems
Apple is working on a new Siri feature for release by iOS 15 in fall 2021 that
will allow users to have a back-and-forth conversation about health problems,
according to internal documentation obtained by The
Guardian<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/06/apple-rewrote-siri-to-deflect-questions-about-feminism>.
The report does not offer any further details about the feature, but Siri will
presumably become more capable of responding to physical and possibly mental
health questions. Apple CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly said that Apple's
health-related initiatives will be the company's "greatest contribution to
mankind."
Apple has increased its presence in the health and fitness space over the past
few years. In 2018, for example, it launched an ECG app for the Apple
Watch<https://www.macrumors.com/2018/12/06/apple-watch-series-4-ecg-hands-on/>
that can detect signs of atrial fibrillation, a condition that can lead to
potentially life-threatening complications such as stroke and cardiac arrest.
Also in 2018, Apple rolled out Health
Records<https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/13/apple-health-records-satisfaction-survey/>,
a feature that allows patients to view medical records from multiple hospitals
and clinics directly in the Health app on the iPhone, including allergies,
vital signs, conditions, immunizations, lab results, medications, procedures,
and other information.
Apple's Health app in iOS 13
Apple's internal documentation, which The Guardian obtained from a former Siri
grader<https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/28/apple-apologizes-over-siri-privacy-concerns/>,
also reveals the company's efforts to ensure that Siri responds as neutrally
as possible to sensitive topics such as feminism:
In explaining why the service should deflect questions about feminism, Apple's
guidelines explain that "Siri should be guarded when dealing with potentially
controversial content." When questions are directed at Siri, "they can be
deflected … however, care must be taken here to be neutral".
For those feminism-related questions where Siri does not reply with deflections
about "treating humans equally", the document suggests the best outcome should
be neutrally presenting the "feminism" entry in Siri's "knowledge graph", which
pulls information from Wikipedia and the iPhone's dictionary.
In a statement, Apple said it aims for Siri to be "factual with inclusive
responses rather than offer opinions":
Siri is a digital assistant designed to help users get things done. The team
works hard to ensure Siri responses are relevant to all customers. Our approach
is to be factual with inclusive responses rather than offer opinions.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the
discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social
Issues<https://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=47> forum. All forum
members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but
posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/09/06/siri-health-conversation-feature-and-neutralness/
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.info<http://WWW.DavidGoldfield.info>
