Anyone find Siri Annoyance/ AI hate/avoidance kind of ironic?

[ry-guy]

Hey all!
I was just thinking the other day how everyone complains about Siri. Siri, can't do this on my phone, doesn't understand me, just wants to open a web link etc. yada yada yada.
We've been used to a broken Siri for so long, we expect it to be dumb.

But, now that A.I. integration is on the horizon, everyone is *polarized* about it all. I remember when the 4S came out and it was crazy at the time.
Siri was supposed to be like an AI chat agent, be an ASSISTANT like Claude etc. It was like the future to talk to your phone. Siri currently has "access" to your entire phone. Messages, email, calendar, etc. But now, the thought of "AI" having access is like a big no-no.

So let's hear your thoughts.
Do you think it's just the privacy concerns surrounding AI/SIRI that people are now afraid of? Does it just need guard rails?
Anyone else think it's ironic that we "wanted" AI all along, but now we are getting it and don't want it/like it?

Anyways, just looking for some thoughtful discussion.

Have a good one!

 

[Philip1]

I recall some time ago (perhaps mistakenly) that Apple was proposing to keep all AI activity that required personal data on-phone, to preserve privacy. This seems to limit the use cases, since an optimally useful (or even a not particularly useful) agentic AI would at least require location, age, personal preferences etc. Currently we can nominally consent to this data sharing in every interaction we have, but cookies and other profiling have rendered this consent almost meaningless.

Agentic Siri will probably be subject to similar user-defined consents but the weak point is now at the other end - you are wholly reliant on the AI on your device to decide whether to trust the 3rd party, e.g. vendor, customer, another AI, and will probably not have chance in many instances to find out who/what they are.

I turned Siri off from the beginning, judging that I could perform the tasks I would have asked it to not much slower but with a substantially lower error rate, and never felt at any disadvantage. However I purchased my first smartphone in 2015 because I was no longer 'compatible' with other people's lives, and the range of everyday tasks they could accomplish with their phone and the speed with which they could do them.

If the general population is not concerned by the risks or weaknesses of agentic AI then it will enter very widespread use very quickly, and a luddite such as I will find it increasingly hard to do without. But I will endeavour to wait for the 'Blackberries' of such a technology to pass first, and very I'm very happy for others to be the guinea pigs!

 

[maflynn]

Siri is bad, I rarely use it, not because of privacy but because as a voice assistant, it does a horrible job. Once (or If) apple finally fixes siri will I use it? Probably not, I really don't really have much faith in apple's ability to do AI

I use AI, both chatgpt and claude but I don't see apple moving the AI needle, so to speak

 

[boswald]

I switched to GPT and couldn't be happier.

 

[jorisw_]

Yeah I think the irony fades if you just look at execution. A lot of AI is just done really badly on a user experience level right now.