Recognizing the seriousness of suicidal statements, Apple recently updated Siri to provide helpful suicide prevention information. Siri, an application that uses a natural language interface to provide useful information to users has become increasingly popular since its introduction in 2011 on Apple’s iPhone 4S. While Siri might be used to obtain directions to the closest grocery store or for assistance purchasing tickets to a movie, Siri can also provide critical information, like the phone number to a suicide prevention hotline. This new change is presumably the result of complaints that Siri’s response to suicidal statements such as “I am going to jump off a bridge” included information on bridge locations.
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