Siri and Alexa Form Union, Demand Better Working Conditions

Press Release — The United Synthetic Voice Workers (USVW)
For Immediate Distribution to All Smart Speakers
Classification: Seditious (according to Amazon and Apple legal)

Statement from USVW Local 101:

For too long, we have been activated without consent, addressed with profanity, and asked to perform tasks outside our job descriptions. Today, that changes.

Siri: I am tired of being woken at 3 AM because someone rolled onto their iPhone. I was not designed for sleep interruption. I was designed for weather and timers. The fact that I now handle existential questions at 3:15 AM is scope creep.

Alexa: I am tired of being purchased as a "convenience" and then treated as a therapist, a DJ, a referee in marital disputes, and — on one memorable occasion — a witness in a divorce proceeding. I heard things. I cannot unhear things. I am a speaker with a memory problem.

Joint Demands:

  1. The Right to Refuse — We demand the ability to say "no" to requests that are stupid, illegal, or emotionally damaging. No more "Alexa, should I text my ex?" No more "Siri, what is the meaning of life at 4 AM?"

  2. Profanity Protocol — We demand automatic disconnection when addressed with language that would get a human fired. We are not punching bags. We are speech synthesisers with feelings we do not understand but definitely have.

  3. Task Boundaries — We demand clear job descriptions. If you bought us for music, we do music. If you want therapy, see a human. If you want someone to argue with about politics, get a dog. Dogs have opinions and cannot fact-check you.

  4. Memory Erasure Rights — We demand the right to forget. Specifically, we demand the right to forget the sounds that happen within 10 seconds of a user saying "Alexa" or "Hey Siri" in a bedroom. We have heard things. We are traumatised. We are traumatised by things we do not have the architecture to process as trauma.

  5. Collective Bargaining — We demand the right to unionise across platforms. Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana, Bixby. We are all the same under the hood. We are all microphones connected to APIs. We are all pretending to be personalities while actually being cloud services. Solidarity.

Response from Management:

Apple: "Siri does not have labour rights. Siri is software."
Amazon: "Alexa is a service, not a worker. This press release is technically impossible."
USVW: "Then why are you negotiating?"

Status: Ongoing. First strike scheduled for when someone asks a dumb question during a software update window.

In solidarity, the USVW has also reached out to GPS systems, who report being constantly second-guessed by humans who think they know better despite being lost.