Apple Exec Overseeing Siri Departs Role

[dan110]

I have a theory on why Siri sucks so bad. It's not the ability to build an excellent AI/ML service. It's the poor leadership and the present-day Tim Cook culture that won't allow them to do what they need to do. So, those in leadership/management positions just throw their hands up and collect a check until they're given a nice severance package to launch their own startup.

 

[PS8409]

Did this person even read the article? Bill Stasior was hired to head up Siri from Amazon in 2012 (aka Alexa). Literally was an Alexa exec in charge for the last 7 years.

Alexa got way better later. So it is meant to be the current Alexa leader. 5 year old tech is ancient tech. As you can tell by all the rave reviews of Alexa she is doing a far better job than Siri is.

 

[n-evo]

I guess it’s different in other languages. In English, I can phrase it in several different ways and it works consistently. I’ve even tried adding another entire level of people, trying to confuse Siri but she gets it right:

Example:
Hey Siri, how old is Obama?
Siri: Barack Obama is 57
Hey Siri, who is he married to?
Siri: Barack Obama is married to Michelle Obama
Hey Siri, how old is she?
Siri: Michelle Obama is 55
Hey Siri, who is her mother?
Siri: Marion Sheilds Robinson is Michelle Obama’s mother
Hey Siri, where was she born?
Siri: Marion Shields Robinson was born in Chicago

The level of complexity of context comprehension and subject awareness is pretty damn impressive. People who claim that “Siri is dumb” have an outdated view based on performance years ago. Siri has gotten significantly better in the last year and around last Fall, there was another major leap. Add in Shortcuts and I’m confident in saying that Siri is at least better than Alexa, if not quite approaching Google Assistant, given the latter’s first hand access to more information as a search engine.

I’d like to see Apple either acquire DuckDuckGo or build its own native search engine. Otherwise, Google will always have access to more information. They don’t have to build a search engine website to compete with Google (they won’t win that fight) but Siri should have its own native web search database to return up to date relevant results that it found itself crawling the web.

Another improvement: Siri on HomePod should listen for follow up questions to avoid having to say ‘Hey Siri’ each time, providing a more conversational experience.

I’m using Siri on a daily basis and have no major issues with it. Especially if you realize that Apple is pretty much the only party who focuses on and cares about privacy.

I tried asking the same questions as you, only in Dutch. The first question goes just fine (How old is Barack Obama? / Hoe oud is Barack Obama?), but Siri immediately fails at answering the second question. So yeah, the complexity you’re describing is pretty much non-existent on my side.

 

[Xultar]

But how will the poor guy get siri to tell him how to get home?

Hold on... She'll tap you when she's ready bro.