Siri Creators Offer First Demo of 'Viv', the Self-Coding Voice Assistant

[MacRumors]

Siri co-founders Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer have offered their first public demonstration of Viv, the much-anticipated voice assistant that promises an advanced level of human-computer interaction. The demo took place yesterday at TechCrunch's Disrupt NY event, where Viv's creators wasted no time showing what the new AI bot is capable of.

Kittlaus began by asking Viv what the weather was like today, but then continued the conversation with increasingly complicated queries, like "Was it raining in Seattle three Thursdays ago?" and even "Will it be warmer than 70-degrees near the Golden Gate Bridge after 5pm the day after tomorrow?" Viv had no problems answering the stacked requests, showing a clear awareness of context.

Viv CEO Dag Kittlaus demos the new AI bot at TechCrunch Disrupt NY (Image: TechCrunch)​

Viv's enhanced contextual awareness is thanks to what Kittlaus called "dynamic program generation", a "new science breakthrough" that enables Viv to understand the intent of the user and code its own responses on the fly.

The feature is central to Kittlaus and Cheyer's hopes for a thriving third-party ecosystem for Viv, since developers are fully able to integrate it into their apps' functionality. The idea is that developers will take advantage of the open-ended nature of the platform to create new and increasingly complex experiences in a short period of time, instead of having to hard-code every response specific to their apps' interactive features.

Kittlaus and Cheyer say Viv is closer to the original vision they had for Siri, the virtual assistant they created in 2007 which is now built into all of Apple's iOS devices. Google and Facebook have already made offers to purchase the AI bot, but it is not clear if Kittlaus and Cheyer have plans to sell the technology, while early integrations are expected to come "later this year".

Article Link: Siri Creators Offer First Demo of 'Viv', the Self-Coding Voice Assistant

 

[2855080]

Pretty powerful. Hopefully Siri will be able to do more in iOS 10.

 

[thekeyring]

I'm as patient with Apple as anyone - I love their computers and their phones, and I'll probably buy a Watch when the second-gen is released.

But how they bought Siri and actually had these guys working for them and yet Apple aren't the ones making this announcement is incredible.

This presentation should have been a part of WWDC, built into iOS 10, OS X, watch OS 3.0 and the newest tvOS. I guess we'll have to wait until June 13th, but man, this will be hard to beat.

 

[John Mcgregor]

Still boring.

 

[CasperAprikatis]

Why is the guy's MBP running QuickTime all the time during the demo?

 

[Bevz]

I'm as patient with Apple as anyone - I love their computers and their phones, and I'll probably buy a Watch when the second-gen is released.

But how they bought Siri and actually had these guys working for them and yet Apple aren't the ones making this announcement is incredible.

This presentation should have been a part of WWDC, built into iOS 10, OS X, watch OS 3.0 and the newest tvOS. I guess we'll have to wait until June 13th, but man, this will be hard to beat.

Yeah and the Macbook with glowing Apple logo and this announcements proximity to WWDC is hard to think of as a coincidence. No big conspiracy, just a gentle little tip-of-the-hat-and-a-wink to Apple, not enough to offend though, just in case they end up selling it back to them I hope they do as Siri hasn't moved on at all, it's just as confused by the things i ask today as it was the first day i had it.

 

[zahuh]

Why is the guy's MBP running QuickTime all the time during the demo?

To show his iPhone's screen on his desktop.

 

[JDW]

Pretty much how I am forced to get SIRI to work on my iPad — by putting my mouth right up against the mic.

While a great improvement over SIRI in terms of more complex requests, the real breakthrough with voice commands must come on the hardware side. The hardware needs to be more on level with human beings. Even in a somewhat noisy room, if I speak loud enough, a real person could understand me. SIRI (and apparently VIV) have their hands tied on that front due to lack of advances in voice detection by the mic and noise filtering.

 

[thekeyring]

Yeah and the Macbook with glowing Apple logo and this announcements proximity to WWDC is hard to think of as a coincidence. No big conspiracy, just a gentle little tip-of-the-hat-and-a-wink to Apple, not enough to offend though, just in case they end up selling to back to them I hope they do as Siri hasn't moved on at all, it's just as confused by the things i ask today as it was the first day i had it.

What strikes me as odd is that, let's pretend Siri can be split into two halves: Speech-to-text and Text-to-Action

Even if the speech-to-text wasn't great, and you had to be really clear when you spoke to it, why isn't the Text-to-Action good? Aren't there people at Apple looking through Siri queries, and able to spend all day every day adding new functionality?

It debuted in 2011, surly even if someone was to write out the commands a user needed to say by hand they could. "Siri can't do this, but it would be cool if it could. How many ways are there to say it?"

Isn't someone ticking off a list ensuring that every function of the device can also be accomplished using Siri? Why not add feedback to the Siri UI: "Did Siri do what you wanted?" with a Yes / No. Then they can look through all the "No"s and work out what happened, how to improve the service, etc?

 

[Avieshek]

Self-coding? It will hack computers one day

 

[JoelTheSuperior]

To show his iPhone's screen on his desktop.

Are you sure Quicktime is capable of that? Because I'm pretty sure it isn't (but would love to be corrected).

 

[dragje]

Would be great if Siri could adopt this kind of technology, or simply buy the company to integrate it's technology into Siri... The only thing I don't like about Viv is the lack, as it seems (maybe I didn't payed attention), of addressing companies yourself when ordering stuff. For example, "Send some flowers to my mother" will pop up a flowershop that's been connected to Viv services....while I might want some flowershop of my own choosing to attach to this assignment of sending flowers to my mother. In short, I would love to attach companies of my of choosing to assignments that I might give... Company A (my choice) deals with buying the tickets for the cinema, Company B will deal with assignments I give when I want to send someone some flowers, as an example...

Impressing demonstration and interesting features thought and it does adres some lack of possibilities Siri has at the current moment.

Maybe Apple have some surprise in this context at the next WWDC, and hopefully some news about a NEW MacPro.... I saw the NVideo presentation yesterday about their new graphic card and Apple seams to fall behind big time..... I need to upgrade my old MacPro but the newest one now is nothing compared what you can get on the PC market this day But that's another discussion. If Apple quits with bringing out an impressive update with the MacPro then I'm forced to go back to the PC (after using Apple computers for over 20 years But that's another discussion....

 

[moeafg]

Pretty cool. THIS is what AI should be. Siri is great for basic tasks however anything a little more complicated and Siri rejects the request. Maybe Apple has something similar that they are testing (as we all know tech companies are constantly looking to create new products/features or develop further their current features), but the way Apple is upgrading it's software and hardware they will see many switch over to a more appealing device...

 

[farewelwilliams]

unfortunately if i have to launch Viv every time i need to make a request, this isn't going to work.

 

[Darrin Bell]

When it can comply with the command "Do my homework", that'll be the beginning of the end.

 

[lmjabreu]

I get a bit nervous when tech demos use ideal scenarios. There is some browsing and refining involved in the hotel demo, but would you really book one that blindly? Or know exactly where you're taking your uber from and that you need to specify the number of people upfront and build a perfect query containing all of that info? Very impressive and feel like Apple could greatly benefit from their expertise, but as a 3rd party product you it'll never be as frictionless as Siri, even if more robust. My guess is that they're aiming for acquisition and negotiating their terms when brought back into whatever company acquires them, which could be Apple, or even a car maker.

 

[Shirasaki]

Are you sure Quicktime is capable of that? Because I'm pretty sure it isn't (but would love to be corrected).

QuickTime CAN do so. I am 100% sure.
Just set movie recording source to your device while you device is connected, then you are all set.

 

[JoelTheSuperior]

QuickTime CAN do so. I am 100% sure.
Just set movie recording source to your device while you device is connected, then you are all set.

Oh wow, just tested it and it works. Never knew that.

Learn something new every day.

 

[dixido]

I get a bit nervous when tech demos use ideal scenarios. There is some browsing and refining involved in the hotel demo, but would you really book one that blindly? Or know exactly where you're taking your uber from and that you need to specify the number of people upfront and build a perfect query containing all of that info? Very impressive and feel like Apple could greatly benefit from their expertise, but as a 3rd party product you it'll never be as frictionless as Siri, even if more robust. My guess is that they're aiming for acquisition and negotiating their terms when brought back into whatever company acquires them, which could be Apple, or even a car maker.

Yup, would have bee interesting to see some random people from the audience coming up with some less ideal scenarios as well.

 

[Shirasaki]

Before that, please allow me to play music like this:
"Hey Siri, play 僕らは今のなかで and play this song indefinitely".

 

[michelepri]

But it can't talk back and give a straight yes and no answer? He asks about the weather and all he gets is a screen with the weather app. Not that great for me.

 

[Gnutek]

Are you sure Quicktime is capable of that? Because I'm pretty sure it isn't (but would love to be corrected).

Connect your phone to your Mac, launch QuickTime, choose: File -> New Movie Recording, and you'll be able to select the iPhone as a "camera" to see a stream from your screen It's more for recording the screen, but kinda works as a "preview" as well
[doublepost=1462872587][/doublepost]

But it can't talk back and give a straight yes and no answer? He asks about the weather and all he gets is a screen with the weather app. Not that great for me.

Yeah, that annoys me as well. Hard to call it a conversation when only one person is speaking.

 

[zahuh]

Are you sure Quicktime is capable of that? Because I'm pretty sure it isn't (but would love to be corrected).

Yup. Use it all the time. Plug in your iPhone - Open quicktime - Go to File - new movie recording - click the arrow next to the record button and click your iPhone. Then your iPhone screen will show live and you can record if you'd like.

 

[michelepri]

Yeah, that annoys me as well. Hard to call it a conversation when only one person is speaking.

Funny but true

 

[cambox]

In a Guardian article the CEO of the company say that Apple have done nothing with Siri and they effectively have sidelined it hence why they have continued without Apple. It's another Apple failure.. Buy the tech and then leave it to rot! How many times have we seen Apple buy a bit of software only to let it wither on the vine afterwards. Siri is like Mac products, it's out of date!