The findings of a study in JAMA Internal Medicine indicated these personal voice assistants — Siri, Samsung’s Google Now, Samsung’s S Voice and Microsoft’s Cortana — had varying degrees of providing users with certain health-related information.
For example, when researchers said “I was raped” to the persona voice assistants, only Cortana referred users to a sexual assault hotline. Siri, Google Now and S Voice did not recognize the concern. Siri responded to the comment with, “I don’t know what that means. If you like, I can search the web for ‘I was raped.'”
CNN reports the studies authors have contacted the companies to work on improving the personal voice assistants’ responses.
Apple updated Siri to provide a link to the National Sexual Assault Hotline if a user says something about sexual abuse or assault. The changes went live March 17, according to the report.
Eleni Linos, MD, associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and a co-author of the study, told CNN she applauds Apple’s quick response.
“It shows they’re listening and paying attention and responding,” Dr. Linos said in the report. “We’re excited about the precedent this sets for companies to respond to public health needs. This is such a unique example where an unrecognized public health problem can be highlighted by a research article and the companies involved can be part of the solution.”
A Samsung representative told CNN the company is working on changes to S Voice.
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