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Apple's Siri Tells Boy to 'Shut the F*** Up'

iPhone voice system insults 12-year-old shopper

By Neal Colgrass, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 1, 2012 2:38 PM CST | Updated Jan 1, 2012 5:11 PM CST

(Newser) – An eager 12-year-old experienced the techno-shock of a lifetime when Apple's Siri voice system told him to "shut the f*** up" the other day. His question: "How many people are there in the world?" The boy, Charlie Le Quesne, had grabbed a demo iPhone while shopping with his mom in Coventry, England. The phone even cursed him a second time when he posed the question again, the Huffington Post reports via the Sun. "I thought I must be hearing things," his mother said.

Why the bad attitude? Maybe Siri "finally lost her temper," muses Chris Matyszczyk on CNET. A more likely explanation was offered by store managers: that a prankster had tricked the phone into thinking the insult was the user's name. Siri has been known to sport a dry sense of humor, however. One user who told it "I need to hide a body" was given a list of grisly locales, including reservoirs, swamps, and metal foundries, TheVerge reports. (See Apple's response to Siri's "blind spot" on abortion queries.)

Siri, known for its acerbic sense of humor. (Getty Images)

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Apple's Siri Tells Boy to 'Shut the F*** Up'

iPhone voice system insults 12-year-old shopper

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