One of the most striking things about the launch of Siri is that its most talked about feature isn't its ability to find restaurants or source facts or send texts, but its sense of humour. Siri comes pre-programmed with seemingly myriad smartass ripostes to smartass questions, spawning many tweets, articles and at least one entire blog.
I find it fascinating that Siri's personality, rather than its functionality, is driving the conversation. Of course, Siri's ultimate value doesn't lie in its sense of humour; there's only so many times you can be amused by its response to a declaration of love. But neither is Siri's personality unimportant to its (yet to be determined) usage and popularity. It's not a 'hard' feature, but it seems to be a very important 'soft' one.
The interesting question is, what role is 'personality' playing here, beyond a bit of light entertainment for the user? The answer seems to be that it establishes an emotional bond between the user and the service - or more specifically, it establishes trust. By showing that it can crack jokes, Siri can smooth over the inevitable gaps in its functionality; it encourages us to think of it as an adaptive, sentient being that is smarter and more surprising than we might predict (of course, we 'know', rationally, that it's a digital programme, and not a person, but we are so willing to anthropomorphise that a little artificial personality can go a long way).
This is really a reproduction of the normal relationship we have with real people. It helps to explain why, for instance, the personality of politicians is so important to their popularity. People - usually politicians - often bemoan the role that personality plays in politics - why can't it be all about 'the issues'? Again, the answer is trust. Voters use instinctively know that policies and promises can change; so they zero in on the person espousing them. Assessing someone's humour and personality is a short-cut to a judgement on their character - and thus helps us predict how they will behave in the future.
