Apple's Siri Chatbot in iOS 27: Everything We Know

[Siliconguy]

On multiple occasions Musk has openly admitted to tampering with Grok forcing it to produce preset replies to specific questions, on one occasion it even regurgitated the instructions it was given instead of the answer. I lost track of the number of times I personally saw Musk tweet how Grok would be “reeducated” on specific subjects that he seems obsessed with.

I should hope such reeducation occurs. An AI is statistical inference engine. If the wrong answer is more common than the correct answer it will happily regurgitate the wrong answer. It's a major design flaw in the whole design.

I've also had the AI give an answer that was correct a few years ago but was presented as the correct answer for today. Nor did it specify that the data was for 2022 and published in 2023.

I realize that most of the people on this blog do not deal with the real physical world on a frequent basis, but for those of us who do the wrong data can easily lead to wrecked machinery and personal injury. Hallucinating AIs are dangerous.

 

[bondr006]

I realize that most of the people on this blog do not deal with the real physical world on a frequent basis

How did you come to this realization/conclusion? Sounds kinda arrogant and condescending imo.

 

[adolflau]

Am I the only one on MR that believes Grok is way better and more accurate than Wikipedia, Gemini or Chat GBT?

I actually mapped the Action Button to launch Grok 👍🏻

 

[whatnot]

Siri Capabilities

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Siri's chatbot capabilities will be "embedded deeply" into Apple's products at the system level. Siri won't be an app, but will instead be integrated into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS like Siri is now.

because it's 'embedded' so 'deeply', there should be a warning when you press 'skip' during setup: "your 'personal intelligence system' will disintegrate and you will turn into a vegetable". story of my life!

 

[nottorp]

They will need a better chatbot because ios 27 will go even more low contrast so all you'll be able to do is talk to your phone because nothing will be distinguishable on the screen...

 

[Velli]

I’m mostly concerned that Gemini powered Siri will solve the big problems, but miss the small things. Like using Siri in CarPlay:

Siri: “XXX has sent a message” (reads it out loud).”Do you want to reply”

Me: “Yes”

Siri: “What do you want to say”

Me: “”No””

Siri: “OK, I will not reply.”

Sigh.

 

[Dr McKay]

I should hope such reeducation occurs. An AI is statistical inference engine. If the wrong answer is more common than the correct answer it will happily regurgitate the wrong answer. It's a major design flaw in the whole design.

I've also had the AI give an answer that was correct a few years ago but was presented as the correct answer for today. Nor did it specify that the data was for 2022 and published in 2023.

I realize that most of the people on this blog do not deal with the real physical world on a frequent basis, but for those of us who do the wrong data can easily lead to wrecked machinery and personal injury. Hallucinating AIs are dangerous.

In these instances Musk was complaining about Grok being “woke” and would have it ignore statistics and instead repeat preprogrammed answers that align with Musks opinion on issues.

Im all for reeducating ai if it means feeding it more data, not when it involves forcing it to mirror a humans opinion on everything.

 

[zenmacx]

Siri is shockingly stupid.

Yes, stupid and relatively useless.

Worse is how long it’s existed in this state. It’s hard to imagine how suddenly Apple could “wake up” come to their senses and execute this blending of Gemini and Siri.

Given the complexity of AI, Apple’s task is far more challenging than many can imagine. Going forward it will be rather fascinating to watch as Apple attempts to recover from the massive deficit in the AI arena.

 

[Siliconguy]

How did you come to this realization/conclusion? Sounds kinda arrogant and condescending imo.

Experience. There are user interface guidelines for distributed control systems used in chemical plants which is my background. By real physical world that is the environment I mean. Not "oh look, I have to hit undo on my cat video" but having high-pressure pumps becoming very offended because an operator mistook something on a control panel. Or an acid flow control valve set wrong. My last employer wouldn't even hire color-blind people because the risk of error was too high. mistake a red light for a green light on a control panel? Eek.

A user interface is not supposed to subordinate legibility and clarity to being cutesy but that is what Liquid Glass does. Fortunately this won't be a problem as iPhones are not rated for Class 1 environments. I had a Kyocera phone that was rated for such. I don't know if they still make it.

If you are not putting on a hardhat, safety glasses, steel-toed boots, gloves and fire-resistant coveralls to go to work you are not in the real physical world I was speaking of. I'll grant farm workers also qualify as real physical world, and commercial fisherman and loggers also qualify. Maybe the front line of health care. Otherwise you are an office worker. Your mistakes are not lethal.

 

[JAQ]

Dear God this something that society doesn't need, and I don't want. Please God, no. What have we done to deserve this dystopian toxic waste?

 

[HylianKnight]

Maybe in the minority here, but I don’t want this. All I want is a better Siri and HomeKit.

 

[Biro]

Just as long as I can keep it all turned off. If not, I’ll have to find another way.

 

[zenmacx]

As I like to say, options are good. Please and thank you, for giving the option to turn these features off.

Options are what most users want and appreciate.

Conversely Apple is known for their staunch belief they know better than their customers what’s best for them.

Ex: Once upon a time we could turn off our iPhones. Currently that’s no longer the case as the “shut down” command no longer turns the phone off even though it’s labeled as such.

This is but one example of Apple taking control and taking away our options.

 

[bondr006]

Experience. There are user interface guidelines for distributed control systems used in chemical plants which is my background. By real physical world that is the environment I mean. Not "oh look, I have to hit undo on my cat video" but having high-pressure pumps becoming very offended because an operator mistook something on a control panel. Or an acid flow control valve set wrong. My last employer wouldn't even hire color-blind people because the risk of error was too high. mistake a red light for a green light on a control panel? Eek.

A user interface is not supposed to subordinate legibility and clarity to being cutesy but that is what Liquid Glass does. Fortunately this won't be a problem as iPhones are not rated for Class 1 environments. I had a Kyocera phone that was rated for such. I don't know if they still make it.

If you are not putting on a hardhat, safety glasses, steel-toed boots, gloves and fire-resistant coveralls to go to work you are not in the real physical world I was speaking of. I'll grant farm workers also qualify as real physical world, and commercial fisherman and loggers also qualify. Maybe the front line of health care. Otherwise you are an office worker. Your mistakes are not lethal.

Just as arrogant and condescending as you were the first time. I do real estate and property management, and I assure you I deal with the real physical world. I help people make the biggest purchases they have ever made. I help them get the best deal they can get. I also help people get the most for their homes. I have seen many realtors go to prison, and people lose their life savings due to that incompetent realtor...that's just about as real as the physical world gets. Some of the people I have to deal with face to face doing property management are just as really physical the real world can get. What in your opinion qualifies as the real physical world, is a very shallow and narrow minded view that qualifies as nothing more than an opinion.

I am retired from the military...which was also part of the very real physical world.

And, equating people who work in an office setting to someone who sits in front of their monitor watching cat videos...is just about as out of touch with the real world as one could get. My wife is an Electronic Engineer, a profession that interacts and affects the real world just as much, if not more as any of the professions you mentioned. Your view/opinion of who interacts with the real physical world is totally skewed and narrow minded...if not glaringly uneducated.

 

[Serrafemme]

Apple’s gonna keep kicking that can down the road. Meanwhile Google and X are just eating Apple’s lunch in the AI field.

 

[vjl323]

Given the complexity of AI, Apple’s task is far more challenging than many can imagine. Going forward it will be rather fascinating to watch as Apple attempts to recover from the massive deficit in the AI arena.

Hear me out on this...it's just a viewpoint, and I am sure people will disagree, but what if this "AI" thing fades? The bubble bursts, the spending stops, etc. As someone who watched the dot com bubble grow and grow and then burst, this gives me feelings of deja vu.

So...if the LLM bubble bursts, and Apple doesn't have a tool that others currently have - will it matter? Will those tools go away since, as it currently stands, companies using these tools do not have enough paying customers to break even. Will Apple be worse for wear?

I understand there are folks who think the bubble won't burst. But what if it does? Will Apple being slow on this, actually be a good thing for them? I am genuinely curious.

 

[MacBH928]

I don't have the 100 post count credential to participate in the political forum, so I'll try to be careful.

No, WP certainly isn't an LLM but like Gemini and Chat GPT, it has bias and sometimes gives downright false answers to Yes/No questions.

I'm sure Grok has it's bias as well and I'm not saying it's perfect, far from it but I believe it draws from more accurate training data when one is after historical or physical facts without an opinion tainting the answer.

Perfection is the enemy of satisfactory. I don't want to anger anyone, I apologize if I have.

If you want unbiased check out DeepSeek (other chinese models like GLM and Qwen might do too)

 

[MacBH928]

Given the complexity of AI, Apple’s task is far more challenging than many can imagine. Going forward it will be rather fascinating to watch as Apple attempts to recover from the massive deficit in the AI arena.

I have a hard time believing a company that designs something like M5 CPU will have hard time creating AI which some unknown chinese group made with a budget of like $10M.

 

[Velli]

Experience. There are user interface guidelines for distributed control systems used in chemical plants which is my background. By real physical world that is the environment I mean. Not "oh look, I have to hit undo on my cat video" but having high-pressure pumps becoming very offended because an operator mistook something on a control panel. Or an acid flow control valve set wrong. My last employer wouldn't even hire color-blind people because the risk of error was too high. mistake a red light for a green light on a control panel? Eek.

A user interface is not supposed to subordinate legibility and clarity to being cutesy but that is what Liquid Glass does. Fortunately this won't be a problem as iPhones are not rated for Class 1 environments. I had a Kyocera phone that was rated for such. I don't know if they still make it.

If you are not putting on a hardhat, safety glasses, steel-toed boots, gloves and fire-resistant coveralls to go to work you are not in the real physical world I was speaking of. I'll grant farm workers also qualify as real physical world, and commercial fisherman and loggers also qualify. Maybe the front line of health care. Otherwise you are an office worker. Your mistakes are not lethal.

What an arrogant way to look at other people.

An “office worker” - an engineer - did the calculations to make sure your hardhat rescues your life when a brick falls on it. And designed your safety glasses to protect your eyes. An office worker makes sure the fireman is sent to the right place.

An office worker should have designed the UI on your control panel such that color blindness doesn’t involve life threatening risks. An office worker is in charge of making sure your two-year-old doesn’t kill himself choking on a toy, or can open your medicine canister.

There are a LOT of office workers who’s mistakes can very much be lethal. Maybe not to him/herself, but that only makes it worse.

A few years ago one of our colleagues lost a finger due to a mistake in programming/setting up an industrial robot. I can tell you that felt very real, both to the person who lost her finger, and the person who’s mistake cost his colleague a finger.

 

[erinsarah]

"Right now, ‌Siri‌ can answer basic questions and complete simple tasks"

....can it though?

The other day I asked Siri “when was the original iPhone released” and she suggested websites. I asked Alexa and she gave me a detailed answer.

 

[antonrg]

What an arrogant way to look at other people.

An “office worker” - an engineer - did the calculations to make sure your hardhat rescues your life when a brick falls on it. And designed your safety glasses to protect your eyes. An office worker makes sure the fireman is sent to the right place.

An office worker should have designed the UI on your control panel such that color blindness doesn’t involve life threatening risks. An office worker is in charge of making sure your two-year-old doesn’t kill himself choking on a toy, or can open your medicine canister.

There are a LOT of office workers who’s mistakes can very much be lethal. Maybe not to him/herself, but that only makes it worse.

A few years ago one of our colleagues lost a finger due to a mistake in programming/setting up an industrial robot. I can tell you that felt very real, both to the person who lost her finger, and the person who’s mistake cost his colleague a finger.

Just wanted to drop in another exemple of an "office worker" - pretty much anyone who deals with transport management, ie traffic controllers (air and rail). Those are pretty much directly involved in real life and in real time.

 

[Kirkster]

There better be an off switch of AI integration until there is a choice of AI engines in the backend. MCP is a thing in 2026. I treat anything from google as a virus. Eliminate where I can and sandbox where I can’t (YouTube).

I don’t trust google or microsloth one bit after decades of interaction with microsoft and watching google go off the rails. Both companies they have both proved they only have their interests at heart and see you as the product.

I want it with an escape hatch.

 

[Kirkster]

Am I the only one on MR that believes Grok is way better and more accurate than Wikipedia, Gemini or Chat GBT?

No, but here on MR you get what you get. The arstechnica attitude seems to have made its way here.

 

[rp2011]

I just hope they can one day manage to get spell check right. I sometimes need to check to see what language my keyboard is set on as I am typing along and spell-check is right behind me happily changing all the words I type in ways I have no idea how or why, and me not realizing until I already pressed send.

 

[Genelec8341]

I just hope they can one day manage to get spell check right. I sometimes need to check to see what language my keyboard is set on as I am typing along and spell-check is right behind me happily changing all the words I type in ways I have no idea how or why, and me not realizing until I already pressed send.

It doesn't have to be that way.