If you can verbally ask SIRI anything then

"If you can verbally ask SIRI on the IPhone 4S anything and have it then do it for you do you need to actually know how to read, write, and do math?"

In science fiction circles we have reached a theoretical time when people might not think that they need to read or write if they can verbally interface with artificial intelligence that will tell them most anything they want to know and do most internet functions for them including speak text when asked or possibly even print out things when asked. In a lot of science fiction, authors have worried that once humans reached this point they might be discouraged by having this ability, to stop learning to read and write because they have (artificial intelligence to do it for them). For example, my ex-wife's brother in Law was rich in another country and when he came here to the U.S. in the 1960s at age 14 or 15 could not yet tie his own shoes and a variety of other things like that because it had always been done for him. Could this be the future for many here on earth that they become so dependent on verbal interfaces with artificial intelligence through smartphones and laptops and phone systems that they become functionally illiterate as a result?

The answer very likely is: Not right away but there is always a tendency to laziness of people everywhere. If people don't have to do something to survive they often stop doing it at all. So, this is something to think about during the next few centuries of human existence here on earth. It might not so much affect you and your children but might affect their children and their children so it would be good to be on guard against functional illiteracy due to artificial intelligence verbal interfaces.