[jfk13]

> Siri was waiting for a command and executed the best command that matched. Which is, make a phone call.

ISTM there's no more "understanding" involved in this than when I touch the Contacts icon on my screen, then "C", "A", "R", etc until Carol's entry is displayed, and then I touch the Phone icon to initiate a call.

The fact that the interface used was sound-waves that the device recognised as matching the keyword "call" and the contact-list entry "Carol", rather than my finger touching specific areas of the screen, may be a handy feature. Of course it's a triumph of signal processing, fuzzy recognition, etc. But there's no more "understanding" involved than in the touch-screen version of the action, or in typing a command and parameter into a terminal window.

[empath75]

Your neurons don’t understand who carol is either, they’re just automatically responding to stimulus.

[jfk13]

But am "I" - my consciousness, my understanding - nothing more than a collection of impulses traveling around a particular network of neurons?

We don't know.

I'd suggest that anyone who purports to give a definitive answer to that is in fact making a leap of faith - in one direction or another.