Apple's Greg Joswiak: Siri Wasn't Engineered to Be Trivial Pursuit

[simonmet]

“It was like running a race and, you know, somebody else was holding us back,"

“We didn't engineer this thing to be Trivial Pursuit!"

Blaming others isn’t a sign of good management.

Greg says it wasn’t engineered to be Trivial Pursuit but I think people want that, or at least be more capable than it is now. They should licence Wolfram Alpha for a start. I’d use it way more if they did. Wolfram Alpha is amazing.

It seems like they got the hard part of speech recognition and text to speech done very well. It just needs to be smarter now.

 

[ipedro]

I’ll be honest, I haven’t noticed that much different in Siri’s iOS 11 voice compared to iOS 10.

Maybe you don’t use Siri enough then. I use Siri every day on my iPhone and on my Watch and I noticed the differences immediately. It simultaneously made the hairs on my neck stand because it’s so eerie how human like it is and smile broadly from realizing the incredible future we’re heading towards.

The cadence is far more human like. She speaks with context. For example, a sad phrase will have a sad speech delivery. A joking or even sarcastic phrase will sound like it. If she’s confused, you’ll hear it in her voice. All of this blows my mind because they haven’t been at this for that long. Imagine where we’ll be in a decade.

 

[CrzyP]

I use Siri and Alexa. I prefer to use Siri. Siri better suits my needs and what I need to accomplish.

 

[Menopause]

Any chance you screenshotted this at 1:22pm?. Perhaps you need to say "tomorrow at 9am"?

Nope, it was a couple of weeks back, late at night. (Also iPhone shows time in either 24h format or with AM/PM).
[doublepost=1504828779][/doublepost]

are you using iOS 11 i just asked siri to lay my recently added music and it worked fine. as far as setting a reminder for the past - that doesn't and shouldn't work - the time on your screen says 1 - i assume in the afternoon

I know, except it wasn't in the afternoon, it was after midnight. This is a sporadically recurring bug that has been driving me crazy for months. Good to know that Recently Added Music works in iOS 11 though.

 

[jay13roberts]

I would be glad if a dog barked at me in place of Siri's "natural voice" if it were 10% more intelligent than what Siri is today. The most pathetic piece of crap ever maintained by Apple.

This is my only experience of Siri.

 

[Macaholic868]

MAKE SIRI GREAT AGAIN!

Siri was never great to begin with.

 

[springsup]

So why can't Siri set a timer on my $3,500 MacBook Pro? Or my AppleTV?

 

[trifid]

So why can't Siri set a timer on my $3,500 MacBook Pro? Or my AppleTV?

What I can't understand is how Apple sets such high standards for some things, like taking a year and half trying to decide what doorknobs to use at the new Apple campus, but they let Siri, the flagship iPhone feature, stagnate and suck etc for 7 years?

 

[Rob_2811]

Maybe you don’t use Siri enough then. I use Siri every day on my iPhone and on my Watch and I noticed the differences immediately. It simultaneously made the hairs on my neck stand because it’s so eerie how human like it is and smile broadly from realizing the incredible future we’re heading towards.

The cadence is far more human like. She speaks with context. For example, a sad phrase will have a sad speech delivery. A joking or even sarcastic phrase will sound like it. If she’s confused, you’ll hear it in her voice. All of this blows my mind because they haven’t been at this for that long. Imagine where we’ll be in a decade.

"I'm sorry I don't know the answer to that but I can search the web for it" in an entire range of emotions?

 

[Cole Slaw]

Its unfortunate Apple doesn't have the monetary resources necessary to improve Siri.
It looked so promising when it came out years ago.

 

[mistasopz]

MAKE SIRI GREAT AGAIN!

You're implying that Siri was great at some point in the past?

 

[MadeMyDay]

Hey Siri,
Can you play Trivial Pursuit?

 

[Defthand]

Joswiak says Apple's aim from the beginning has been to make Siri a "get-s**t-done" machine. "We didn't engineer this thing to be Trivial Pursuit!" he told Wired. Apple wants Siri to serve as an automated friend that can help people do more.

That's a noble goal. However, most users use Siri exclusively with iOS--and very few use iOS for complex tasks. If making an calendar entry, or a reminder to get milk, deserves the same brainpower investment and resources as sending a rocket to the moon, we've reached a new low as a culture.

 

[macs4nw]

Siri has one thing going for her: the multi-language support blows every other AI (actually, all of them combined) out of the water.

Which I suspect is precisely the reason it has (so far) been less able to understand our supposedly intelligible utterings, and frustratingly so. Being able to distinguish words in 21 different languages must somehow be much more complex than correctly identifying words in one single language.

Hopefully the new and improved deep learning and AI will soon put Siri on par with Alexa and Cortana when it comes to correct word recognition. When that happens Siri will be miles ahead of the competition while, and as long as, those competitors are still stuck on a single language.

 

[Uofmtiger]

I really don't understand why so many people have problems with Siri. I use it every single day and it works probably 99% of the time.



I just tested out an example. I asked "how tall is Donald Trump" to which Siri gave me the answer. Then I asked "does he have any children" to which Siri told me the names of his children. I then asked " what is his wife's name" to which it brought up Melania. I asked how tall she was, but it then told me the height of Donald Trump. Of the first three questions, I only use his name once, Siri knew who I was talking about for the next two questions.

I tested it and it worked the same way. I am not sure who sits and has long conversations with their digital assistants, but I haven't tried it other than doing this test. I have an Echo Dot and just tried the same task and it could not answer the second question.

 

[urbanslaughter1997]

I don't give a s**t whether it sounds like a human or R2D2, just make it understand what I'm saying and then make it so it can respond accordingly. Also, do you know how frequently in the average day, I need to translate something? Never. I'm not saying that won't be useful to me on an unusual day or that it won't be useful to someone else, but to the average person on an average day . . . probably not terribly useful.

 

[duffman9000]

They want to CHANGE that. Who cares what it was if it's something good now?

Apple has telling us for years how Siri is improving. Not buying it.

 

[urbanslaughter1997]

Apple has telling us for years how Siri is improving. Not buying it.

If they don't improve Siri quickly they're going to miss the bus. I'm I conclude shortly that Siri is not worth the effort, it will be very difficult to get me, and the millions of others who view it as a fail, to try it again.

 

[avanpelt]

I tried to show off Siri to my new father in law (a few years ago):

Me: "Siri, call my wife".

Siri: "Which wife"

My father in law: "TWhuaaaat"?

-1 Siri

Siri still does the same stuff today. It's beyond stupid. My wife is in my contacts by only her first name. I told Siri who my wife was and Siri acknowledged what I said and said she would remember it.

Even so, I can't have anyone else listed in my contacts that has wife's first name or Siri responds "which wife?" when I ask it to call my wife. Along with asking such a stupid question (unless someone is a polygamist), Siri proceeds to show me everyone in my contacts that has my wife's first name so I can pick the one I want.

After "training" Siri five or six times who my wife was and she refused to learn, I had to put first initials into my contacts for everyone who shares my wife's first name.

 

[Seoras]

Reminders. That's the only thing I find really useful about Siri. It's such a faff putting a reminder in manually and so easy just saying "her siri, remind me to piss off fandroid trolls on MR on Monday morning at 10am"

 

[The Mad Hatter]

Said no one ever lol.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he just say it?

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

I'm with them on this and no HAL 9000.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

Siri still does the same stuff today. It's beyond stupid. My wife is in my contacts by only her first name. I told Siri who my wife was and Siri acknowledged what I said and said she would remember it.

Even so, I can't have anyone else listed in my contacts that has wife's first name or Siri responds "which wife?" when I ask it to call my wife. Along with asking such a stupid question (unless someone is a polygamist), Siri proceeds to show me everyone in my contacts that has my wife's first name so I can pick the one I want.

After "training" Siri five or six times who my wife was and she refused to learn, I had to put first initials into my contacts for everyone who shares my wife's first name.

I don't know if you tried this, but link your wife's contact card to your main one via related>spouse. This might solve your dilemma.

 

[dogslobber]

Siri is a gimmick only used for a laugh when you have friends over. It's not a real instrument of productivity as nobody wants to talk to a computer. That's why all these speaking gadgets are doomed to fail.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

The iPhone 4 did that. My Pre-smartphone did that , too.

Microsoft Voice Command did it too, in 2005. It would use the Internet if it couldn't find what you were looking for on the 256MB Windows Phone, but a 256GB iPhone with an A10 chip in it?

Nope, I need the power of Apple in some data center with millions of exabytes of storage and the computing power 15 quintillion times more than got 3 men to the moon and back, to figure out how to call your wife, whom you talk to several times a day.

Siri has been, and always will be a failure for that reason alone.
[doublepost=1504834474][/doublepost]

I don't know if you tried this, but link your wife's contact card to your main one via related>spouse. This mght solve your dilemma.

I was going to suggest he ask the other women with her first name to marry him. That might be an easier solution that convincing Apple that they've failed at Siri.