Articles on MobileBeat and Amadi Talks have sparked an online row that Siri—and by extension Apple—is anti-abortion. This is on the basis that Siri does not respond successfully to questions about abortion clinics or abortion itself. If this really is the case, then Apple’s position here is at odds with its relatively liberal stance. Apple employees took part in pro-LGBT It Gets Better, for example, and it’s to participate in World Aids Day (The Loop); a blanket ban on pornography through the App Store is the only outright ‘moral’ clampdown I can think of.

There are also some things to bear in mind before attempting to rip Apple’s board a new arsehole over this issue (or, if you’re anti-abortion yourself, congratulating the company):

1. Siri is still in beta. The software is full of holes. If you’re outside of the USA, you cannot even search for any businesses. Even in the USA, it’s full of bugs and often misinterprets input.
2. Siri isn’t intelligent. Arguments about Siri being anti-abortion and misogynistic appear to have some credence when you’re mindful that it can reportedly infer someone’s demands to go to a strip club, and yet it ignores abortion terms. But Siri’s about one step up from a 1985 Infocom text adventure. The lack of understanding about abortion could easily be a hole in the feature’s ‘understanding’, or something that hasn’t been added, or something that a male-oriented team didn’t realise was important enough to correctly or fully define.
3. Siri often uses generic answers. One comment I’ve seen is that Siri answers “I just am” if you ask: Why are you anti-abortion? This isn’t confirmation about anything, given that Siri offers the same answer if you say: Why are you a penguin?
4. You can send Apple feedback. If you believe Apple’s in the wrong and doubt any of the possible reasoning I’ve offered (or simply want to ensure Siri is updated accordingly), visit the Apple website and offer some constructive feedback.

If Siri comes out of beta and it’s clear Siri’s still treating the term ‘abortion’ as a business (as it currently does when you ask “What is abortion?”, although “Define abortion” brings up a short description via Wolfram Alpha) and essentially blocking results to centres and institutions that Google and Bing offer, fair enough: there’s clearly something very wrong at Cupertino. For now, though, I’d argue Amadi Talks offers a perfectly sensible perspective on the issue:

Is this the most terrible programming failure ever? No. Is this worth a boycott of Apple? I don’t think so. What it is, however, is a demonstration of a problem. Especially when certain topics seem to be behind a black wall where information that’s readily available online is not being “found” or presented. This is something that Apple and/or Wolfram Alpha need to address and rectify.

In other words, don’t go crazy just yet, but this is something Apple needs to address.