Siri Can't Find Abortion Clinics. Purposeful policy or oversight?

Does it strike you as a political choice or a programming mistake? http://rww.to/vFv7ha

byReadWriteWeb@rww
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  5. Siri, You're Never Going To Take Over Search If You Can't Find Abortion Clinics
    Let's get one thing straight: Apple's Siri is based on a DARPA-funded military artificial intelligence project. It is indicative ...
    ReadWriteWeb
  6. Wilson Hines  -  Why would it be a programming mistake. Oh wait! Nevermind.
  7. Redwan Huq  -  Very, very shady. Then again, this is coming from a company that lovesto shove its views down your throat.
  8. Craig Rood  -  Y'know, If Google had filtered out content in this way there would be a HUGE uproar. If Apple are going to play in the 'search' space they have to play fair.
  9. From Alicia's post:
  10. phronk -- I told Siri to search for "my friend Doug's house" and all it found were restaurants with "house" in the title! What the F! Obviously Apple has something personal against my friend Doug. Like, if I search for bars it knows where to find them. This beta software's limitations are a clear indication of intentional discrimination.
  11. brianisinyou -- Siri searches local businesses using yelp. Searching for "abortions" in my part of Los Angeles got me one tavern. This isn't silly political bullshit, it's a beta release of a search tool. Calm down.
  12. Manny Cortez -- Sounds like Siri is only searching for businesses with the words "Abortion" and "Clinic" in them... We did a test and searched for "Planned Parenthood" and found 7 nearby offices.
  13.      --> Curt Hopkins -- Perhaps "planned" and "parenthood" aren't pariah words in the Apple ecosystem. For whatever reason, "abortion" clearly is.
  14.      --> Abraham Hyatt -- When I tell Siri "find me groceries" I get 19 results, none of which contain the word "groceries".
  15. Mike McPeek -- What would we doing if Steve Jobs had been aborted rather than put up for adoption?
  16. Art Silva -- It's not that Siri can't find abortion clinics, it's b/c abortion clinics don't use "abortion" in their titles
  17.      --> Curt Hopkins -- I'll bet it finds bookstores even when they use neither "book" nor "store" in their name.
  18.      --> Alicia Eler -- Don't you think Siri should be smart enough to know that?
  19.      --> Art Silva -- You would think right? I wonder if Apple will respond to this.
  20.      --> Curt Hopkins -- Alicia reached out to a number of them. And I'm personally perfectly happy to entertain a different explanation for the omission than a political choice on the company's part. But sometimes company PR people are less responsive with something like this than they are when they have a new doodad to hawk.
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