At least once she replied, "I believe there's an app for that" - a cheap laugh from the Apple techs. Other times it's: "All evidence to date suggests that it's chocolate," or a Sartre wisecrack: "I can't answer that now, but give me some time to write a long play in which nothing happens."
Siri, if you've been held captive by pirates for the last few months, is the built-in app that sets the latest iPhone apart from the competition. Integrated into the phone's Contacts, calendar and other features, Siri is intended to allow you to speak naturally and get stuff done - making calls, sending texts, scheduling meetings and reminders, and other typical smartphone tasks.
Speaking naturally with Siri can simultaneously be useful, hilarious, and maddening - so much so that exchanges with Siri have become a YouTube staple alongside adorable kittens.
Siri has even guest-starred, albeit with much literary license, on CBS's series The Big Bang Theory. And a hilarious but crude online video features Siri relaying angry messages between a feuding husband and wife. What can she do? Siri offers to look up nearby florists.
Of course, Siri can't actually do all the things people ask or imagine - not when popular notions of artificial intelligence are still driven by science fiction, especially the practically perfect computer on Star Trek or its malevolent cousin on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
But as an initial foray into artificial intelligence, Siri has impressed specialists in the field, who point out the enormous complexity of tasks that Siri often handles routinely - complexity that also explains why the Web is full of her documented fumbles.
