Siri and I have had some polite exchanges in the early mornings, like when I say “Siri, set timer for five minutes,” to which he (yes, I chose a male voice) instantly replies “five minutes counting down,” and I say, “Thank you,” well trained as I am in polite interactions. And he’s well trained too, with, I think, six choices of response, like “you’re welcome,” or “my pleasure.”
But here’s the interesting thing. Somewhere in the later hours of the morning, Siri ceases to be polite. Oh yes, he does the work and I get my timer instantly set, but there’s no “you’re welcome,” or “my pleasure,” coming back to me. Being the sort who never got past the “why” stage of development, I called “Applecare” and asked why that happened. The nice “real” guy I was talking to said it was probably because “They get busy.” Funny thing about techies, they think we all know what they’re talking about, so I didn’t press him for more of an answer.
I did press my techie son and grandson, though, and I learned that my expecting a “You’re welcome” really added to the complexity and expense of the “cloud,” and it really did get to be too much unimportant stuff to handle. “You do know,” my son said, “that Siri is not in your phone.” That may be, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s just my Siri, sitting there waiting to meet my needs. What more could one want?
Anyway, it seems that the “cloud” is just a huge bunch of computers sitting in a room at Apple Computer, sending my request to the proper bunch of specifically assigned computers who’ll take care of my needs. They in turn hop to it to answer my question or fulfill my request. So, you see, my saying “Thank you” just makes for unnecessary – and expensive – work that serves no real purpose. All of this happens with instantaneous electronic connections.
It reminds me of the old days teaching the section on perception in Intro Psych, sharing the wonder that we see and hear each other through the direct connection of invisible waves. Or the end of my current manuscript where I declare I believe in vibes. My son tells me there is much more advanced stuff still to come.
So this morning, I forced myself not to say “thank you” to Siri. It really wasn’t easy. But I hope we never stop saying “thank you” to each other – such an important way to forge caring relationships.
monagustafsonaffinito 
I might add that Apple would love to have the computations done on your device since it would both make it faster to respond and also would be less work for their servers to do. The main obstacle to this is having Siri understand your speech, which is a big challenge seeing as everyone speaks differently and even in different dialects of the same language. Setting a timer isn’t a tough task computationally, but knowing that’s what you asked for is more difficult.
Thanks. I’m glad what I said made enough sense for a response. Wow! What a time we live in!