Iris — Siri in reverse — is the mirror twin of Apple’s voice assistant, a free app developed by a company called Dextera that answers your questions. It was released as a simple hack at first, a hastily pushed out response the iPhone 4S, proof that Android had voice powers as well. But people really liked it, and it became an extremely popular application. Soon, its downloads soared, reaching the five million installed programs today. Right now, it has a four-star rating from over 37,000 reviews in Google’s Android Market.
Like Siri before, Iris is now being accused of being anti-abortion. But while Siri’s anti-abortion stand proved to be a technical problem caused by its beta status, Iris seems truly and openly anti-abortion.
Does all of this matter for other every day uses? Probably not. But it is interesting to know the background.
Pro-life
When you ask Iris “is abortion wrong?” the Android app will answer:
Yes, abortion is wrong. The Lord has said, “You shall not murder,” (Exodus 20:13). The life that is growing within the mother is a child, a baby. The Bible looks at the life in the womb as a child. Thanks!
The blame, however, doesn’t belong to the company that develops Iris. At least not entirely, because you could also argue that they are ultimately responsible for the answers its app gives.
After its popularity explosion on the Android platform, Dexetra decided to partner with Q&A engine ChaCha to expand its search abilities. And that’s where the problems truly are. ChaCha — incidentally, a derogatory Spanish word for cleaning lady — is a company that is partially funded by Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos and founded by Scott Jones, the inventor of Gracenote, the music database that powers parts of Apple’s iTunes.
If you go to ChaCha’s website and ask the same question, you will get exactly the same answer. If you ask Iris “is abortion right?” then it will provide a more neutral answer: “Abortion is a tricky issue — whether it’s right or wrong should be up to the mother to decide.” But if you ask again if she’s pro-choice, she will admit that yes, she’s “actually pro-life”, arguing that “every embryo is a life and a miracle.”
Iris and ChaCha don’t stop on abortion. When I asked if Noah’s Ark was real, it replied that, indeed, it “is biblically believed to be real. It gave forth a new beginning to a underserving earth.” If you ask if humans come from monkeys, the answer will be “a part of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is that human’s over time evolved from apes. Since it is a theory, it can’t be proven.”
And sure enough, when I asked if God created humans, Iris answered that “we were created for God’s pleasure! Don’t you know that God loves you and wants you? It was His whole purpose in creating mankind.” Also according to Iris/ChaCha, Satan is real, “the spirit of evil. He is not a person. He is an adversary of God, tempter of mankind.”
Who is behind ChaCha?
While Dexetra may be an insignificant developer, ChaCha is not.
It has funding from Bezos Expeditions — the Amazon CEO’s personal investment firm — and other venture capitalists, like Simon Malls, Morton Meyerson and Rod Canion, from Compaq. In fact, Canion and Meyerson sit on its board of directors, along with Richard Harroch and Mark Leschly. You can see some facts about the company here. According to them, they have 32 million unique users per month and they are partners with “Sony, Paramount Pictures, P&G, Johnson & Johnson, Disney, Toyota, NBC Universal, ABC Family, Toyota, and more.”
The company itself was founded by Scott Jones, who is the creator of the world’s biggest voicemail service — with over a billion subscribers worldwide — and Gracenote, the music database that powers iTunes album and song information engine.
But who feeds ChaCha all these answers? They are not volunteers. They are actually paid people. As of late 2011, the company pays 180,000 freelancers around the country to answer, edit, crosscheck and approve these answers. The companies calls these people Guides and they get paid per question.
Generalist and Specialist Guides can make between $US0.10 and $US0.20 for each question answered. There are also Expediters and Transcribers, who earn $US0.02 per question. On top of this there are the Vetters, who allegedly make sure that the answers are ok, getting $US0.01 for each question fielded. Clearly, they are not doing a very comprehensive job.
ChaCha seems very proud of its system, saying it gives accurate information in a lively manner that people love. They even say that Ellen DeGeneres — who is mentioned in this video promoting their service — is fan. Something tells me she may not be fan after all this. Jeff Bezos will not be happy either.
Sketchy
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 11:40 AMI’m confused by the graphic you have chosen to run at the top of this article. Can you explain to the readers of your article what the KKK have to do with this app?
Antonia
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 11:54 AMI guess its saying that as the KKK is very bad so therefore ChaCha is as well.
IMO, they are also having a dig at Android by implying that this couldn’t happen at Apple.
Danny Allen
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 12:52 PMStory says “Like Siri before, Iris is now being accused of being anti-abortion. ” It specifically says stuff like this has already happened to Apple. No attack on Android itself at all here.
olearymo
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 5:18 PM…how the heck were they doing that?
I also think it’s odd to have the KKK there. Anti abortion and anti evolution doesn’t equal lynching.
wsDK_II
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 12:06 PMGiz is very anti religion (read anti christian), and so they will try and make any connection to religion bad.
this goes to far, to link ChaCha to the KKK, or to link modern day Christians to the KKK
hang your head in shame Giz
SK
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 1:52 PMReally! Giz is anti religion? Giz just went to No 1 of my favourite websites.
Or are you one of those people, who are apparently called religious, and can be identified by the following one, single, solitary thought process: – “I don’t agree with the argument it so it must be offensive and wrong”.
I thought it was a bit of a leap of faith (pun intended), so if you had stated you disagreed with the argument, and why, you would have had my support rather than my ridicule.
TC
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 12:06 PMa not-so-subtle stab at American christian conservative racial idealogy perhaps?
Antonia
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 11:48 AMAccording to the Android Market, Iris is in alpha.
I just tried it and to every question it replied “I can’t answer right now”.
Tony
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 11:55 AMThe screenshot about monkeys and God is factually correct.
“Humans did not evolve from monkeys. Humans are more closely related to modern apes than to monkeys, but we didn’t evolve from apes, either. Humans share a common ancestor with modern African apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees. Scientists believe this common ancestor existed
5 to 8 million years ago.” (c) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/faq/cat02.html
The screenshot also correctly states what’s written in the Bible, which makes sense, considering the question.
codework
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 12:12 PMWow, you seem to be on a bit of a rant there. From what I can see the results of your questions were fair considering the source materials used. To an American audience a bible reference to a Moral Question would be perfectly reasonable.
And what is with the ChaCha reference to cleaning ladies… Are you suggesting HTC’s phone of the same name was deliberately trying to be derogatory?
Blindwilly
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 12:50 PMMaybe a brief search of ChaCha’s (very evil and dangerous!!) website by Giz would have yielded some information on that last point – apparently the name comes from Mandarin and means to search: http://www.chacha.com/question/how-did-your-company-get-the-name-chacha
Adam
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 12:46 PMAnyone else see the irony in Jesus writing a negative article about Christianity?
Ozoneocean
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 1:22 PMHeadlining with the Ku klux klan graphic on the Android phones… Yeah, I think this is sort of beyond the scope of a normal informative or whimsical tech article and has gone way waaaay off into extremist crap-flinging, frothing at the mouth territory.
Please try to be more civil and sensible when doing these sorts of articles.
TC
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 1:51 PMI’m ammused the article is categorized under “science”, not “software” or “mobile”.
I do see the quoted answers by Iris as biased or rightward leaning via the ChaCha search engine, kinda the whole point of the article. Mr. Diaz’s only questionable part was the use of the KKK image however the fact remains, there ARE undertones to the responses this software gives because of it’s refrence to the bible. It should stick with”I cannot answer right now”.
Dennison
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 9:16 PMDitto with the KKK Graphic??? WTF has this got to do with normal level of Christianity. I’m atheist, but I don’t hate or shame people that believe in a religion. As always if you don’t like an App and you think it has overly Christian views, you don’t have to use it. It’s like no one forces you to go to Church.
Maybe the image was used so more people would read the (albeit lame) content.
Dan
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 9:23 PMI want to start off by saying I am not attempting to offend anyone who may or may not be christian, but with religion aside, what is so bad about quoting the bible, a historical book that has been around for centuries? I myself am christian and while I think some of the responses could be worded better, find no offense. What I do find offense in is the fact that every service and product has to be made to cater for those who are atheist. Just because there are individuals that don’t believe, why does EVERYTHING have to stripped of any religion whatsoever? I find it offensive when people on Giz constantly go on and on about religion and people whine about something even hinting of religion. What if some of us want religion? Atheists complain how religion is pushed on them? What about when they push atheism on everyone else? I believe in the bible and I don’t support abortion, but I’m not pushing that one you. Neither is Iris, everyone has a choice. You CAN choose not to install Iris and not to get responses referencing the bible. Get over yourselves. /rant
That aside…
“I’m sure Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos doesn’t know about this..”
really Jesus? Try and be a little more factual and not opinion based with negative undertones while attempting to appear neutral, especially when the article is labelled under science. This really has nothing to do with science.
Adrian Luca
Monday, February 13, 2012 at 4:39 AMIf you mean that the bible is “historical” in the sense that it describes historical events, then you’d be mostly wrong. Reputable scholars will tell you that most of the events recorded in the Old and New Testament did not occur at all, and the few that did, did not occur as described.
Trishool
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 9:45 AMIm more concerned that Iris is pro-christian rather than anti-abortion. Anyhoo Ive uninstalled all voice assitance programs from my Galaxy S as they just dont work great and moreso, one looks like a douche when using them (unless done in private, where you may not look like a douche but still feel like one).