Siri abuses 12-year-old in Tesco

A 12-year-old boy’s mother failed to see the funny side when Siri running on a demo model iPhone delivered a torrent of abuse in response to a question according to a report.

The Sun reported that 12-year-old Charlie Le Quesne was trying out an iPhone 4S and asked the digital assistant Siri "How many people are there in the world?"

Tesco staff told the boy’s mother that someone had tampered with the phone and changed the phone owner’s name, presumably to the naughty phrase.

That said, Siri only very occasionally says the user’s name and does not, from what we’ve seen, actually speak the owner’s name even when the name is provided in an answer. So a simple name change doesn’t appear to explain the prank.

Under the scornful eye of an outraged tabloid, Tesco reportedly announced that the retailer had launched an investigation and that the phone would be going back to Apple for ‘diagnostics.’

Another explanation could be that junior had asked a question rather different than later one relating the population of the world…