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Siri getting really personable!

Cougarcat said:
1) A "pre-programmed gimmick" is all that's possible at the moment. Would you rather have nothing?

2) AI research moves very, very slowly compared to other technology. Come back in 20 years, we might have true AI then.

3) Of course, Apple didn't exactly help with expectations with its advertising....
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1a) Yes, I'd be very happy with nothing. I have zero desire to give verbal commands, or questions to my phone. It's very rude when out in public, except for those narcissists who's ego is bolstered by garnering attention.

2a) It's true, I work in an R&D environment where AI is but one of our long term projects.

3a) Ah yes, Apple's famous hype machine. It's irritating to those of us that don't believe in "Magical & Revolutionary". Yet there is that segment of the public that are believers. It's these same people that return an unusually high number of devices, due to their elevated expectations.
 
I was hoping you meant the voices were getting to sound a little less like... a machine. D:
 
ixodes said:
1a) Yes, I'd be very happy with nothing. I have zero desire to give verbal commands, or questions to my phone. It's very rude when out in public, except for those narcissists who's ego is bolstered by garnering attention.

2a) It's true, I work in an R&D environment where AI is but one of our long term projects.

3a) Ah yes, Apple's famous hype machine. It's irritating to those of us that don't believe in "Magical & Revolutionary". Yet there is that segment of the public that are believers. It's these same people that return an unusually high number of devices, due to their elevated expectations.
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I'm sorry but how is it rude to talk to your phone in public?
 
virginblue4 said:
I'm sorry but how is it rude to talk to your phone in public?
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Because most people do not know how to speak in a low civil tone when using their phone in public and think two cell phones are cans connected by string so they must yell into the phone. Because most people use their phone during inappropriate times like on morning commuter trains at 530 am when many people around them are sleeping. So now add in some jerk off at 530 in the morning on a commuter train asking Siri to open apps or do this or that when he could easily just tap a few icons is rude....if you don't get that then I am afraid you may be one of "those people"
 
Sometimes I just too busy and want the answer to my question and no BS. Other times I'm more laid back such as when I'm not at work and wouldn't mind the sense of humor. So I hope one can toggle the "personableness" on/off.
 
Gutwrench said:
Sometimes I just too busy and want the answer to my question and no BS. Other times I'm more laid back such as when I'm not at work and wouldn't mind the sense of humor. So I hope one can toggle the "personableness" on/off.
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Ha yeah imagine if you had a friend and every time you asked him something simple he told you something irrelevant first!
 
OK so I asked Siri when the closing ceremonies are and all I got back were the dates the Olympics are being held. I was expecting to see 'the closing ceremonies will be held on [date] at [time]. Other than giving me the weather and setting an alarm I find Siri pretty useless.
 
marc11 said:
Because most people do not know how to speak in a low civil tone when using their phone in public and think two cell phones are cans connected by string so they must yell into the phone. Because most people use their phone during inappropriate times like on morning commuter trains at 530 am when many people around them are sleeping. So now add in some jerk off at 530 in the morning on a commuter train asking Siri to open apps or do this or that when he could easily just tap a few icons is rude....if you don't get that then I am afraid you may be one of "those people"
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Very well said. There's nothing more annoying than a loudmouth on a cell phone. Some people have no consideration for others.

I've had to listen to enough people raising their voice, and repeat the question when they didn't get the result out of Siri they wanted. It's simply unbelievable.
 
Soundflunky said:
After using Google Now, Siri seems so immature and synthetic (it's a synthetic person obviously, I mean a synthetic search utility). Any voice solution Google offers is going to be able to tap into what they've been building since the nineties, while Apple is going to have to plug into a whole load of smaller services to get a fraction of the same info. They then cover up the shortcomings by adding "personality".

Thankfully for Apple, even though Google's an ad company they don't seem to want to tell people Now exists. Either that, or they're gunshy about doing it since many Android phones may not include it.
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Therein lies the problem. AI needs to be smart and expansive. Simply corralling my choices within Google's knowledgebase isn't going to help me. I think the preferable solution is to collect a bunch of smaller databases that rely on a huge monolithic one.

Frankly I'm with the other posters here. As it stands now Google Now and Siri are not even close to where we need to be in sophistication and utility.

When Google Now and Siri move beyond the ability to simply respond to a query I'll be more impressed. Right now these bakeoffs tend to come down to speed "wow Siri/Google Now won that one ..."

Umm... it's not about speed it's about accuracy and the accuracy for both falls off the cliff the minute you talk to your phone like it's a 4 year old.
 
Have you used Now? That's not my experience at all. Google has better handling of natural language or something. Like others have mentioned, all Siri hears is "when" and "Olympics" and gives the wrong information. Google seems to listen to the entire query and guesses a query from that. Not to mention it has way nicer voices. I almost think Apple wants Siri's voices to sound robotic as part of the gimmick, because there has to be a reason for them using such horrible stilted voices compared to Google's and others'.

There are a lot of negatives with Google and their products but they are the best at search and at this point all these VIs are are search engines.
 
Soundflunky said:
Have you used Now? That's not my experience at all. Google has better handling of natural language or something. Like others have mentioned, all Siri hears is "when" and "Olympics" and gives the wrong information. Google seems to listen to the entire query and guesses a query from that. Not to mention it has way nicer voices. I almost think Apple wants Siri's voices to sound robotic as part of the gimmick, because there has to be a reason for them using such horrible stilted voices compared to Google's and others'.

There are a lot of negatives with Google and their products but they are the best at search and at this point all these VIs are are search engines.
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Umm, Google does the exact same thing. It picks out key words, using algorithms to work out what the user means and then gives them a response based on that.

As another user said, google basically just googles the answer for you and a lot of the time brings it up on screen as text. Siri has access to lots of different sources of information and I found it to be much more useful. This is coming from someone who has tried both.
 
So they added more canned responses and expanded the random function to include a popular world wide event... hmmn. I like Siri as much as the next person but this is more clever programmers than clever AI here. It's designed to illicit an emotional response from the user so I guess they're doing their jobs well.

I'm actually still hoping Siri becomes more conversational than it is in the current iteration. Something like asking about the Olympics, getting a similar result, and then have Siri ask you if you want to view scores or ask if you want to schedule any of the upcoming events on your calendar / reminders for later that day or asking what your favorite even was and then offering to remind you the next time it airs. Now that would be impressive.
 
Anyone else remember how good the ICQ bots were? There were stories of people having full conversations with them without knowing it.

Anyways. I think I would be very annoyed if I get some little joke before every answer. I like when I ask something silly or something Siri doesn't understand and I get a funny reply. I even like finding the easter eggs.

The real power of Siri comes from being able to interact with your world, not just google crap. Siri needs to become more aware of everything including your social feeds, etc.

Siri, what's the weather today?
75 degrees with a chance of thunderstorms in the evening. However the weather looks great for the concert on Saturday.
Siri, Has the band posted any updates about Saturday?
The latest update is: The band is providing free posters to anyone who posts by Friday.
etc.
 
nuckinfutz said:
Therein lies the problem. AI needs to be smart and expansive. Simply corralling my choices within Google's knowledgebase isn't going to help me. I think the preferable solution is to collect a bunch of smaller databases that rely on a huge monolithic one.

Frankly I'm with the other posters here. As it stands now Google Now and Siri are not even close to where we need to be in sophistication and utility.

When Google Now and Siri move beyond the ability to simply respond to a query I'll be more impressed. Right now these bakeoffs tend to come down to speed "wow Siri/Google Now won that one ..."

Umm... it's not about speed it's about accuracy and the accuracy for both falls off the cliff the minute you talk to your phone like it's a 4 year old.
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Google Now can alert you to leave sooner than you were planning due to traffic congestion between your current location and the location of something on your calendar. I'd say that's a little more depth than "simply responding to a query."
 
sakau2007 said:
Google Now can alert you to leave sooner than you were planning due to traffic congestion between your current location and the location of something on your calendar. I'd say that's a little more depth than "simply responding to a query."
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Does it also remind you to wipe your arse after taking a dump?

That's not a semantic feature. Google Now doesn't understand much of anything other than calculating the estimated time that the trip will take and setting an alert based on the time.

That's not really complex IMO
 
nuckinfutz said:
Does it also remind you to wipe your arse after taking a dump?

That's not a semantic feature. Google Now doesn't understand much of anything other than calculating the estimated time that the trip will take and setting an alert based on the time.

That's not really complex IMO
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You're right, it isn't complex. But it is very useful and absent from iOS and Siri. Got any other smartass remarks to make while I give you one (of many) examples that show the edges of Google Now over Siri?

Calling a feature like that not complex is like calling Siri worthless because the iPhone already had voice recognition available on it prior to iOS 5 (including Siri itself).
 
Not sure if this is possible already, but can Siri remind you of calendar events?

For example, today is my dad's birthday, I have practice tonight, and the wife and I have an event to go grocery shopping.

Is there a setting that Siri will update me at the beginning of the day with all of these calendar events?
 
virginblue4 said:
Umm, Google does the exact same thing. It picks out key words, using algorithms to work out what the user means and then gives them a response based on that.

As another user said, google basically just googles the answer for you and a lot of the time brings it up on screen as text. Siri has access to lots of different sources of information and I found it to be much more useful. This is coming from someone who has tried both.
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Obviously they're doing the same thing. But Google has a much better database to draw from than Apple.

They have a lot of catching up to do but the shortcuts they employ, like having it sing and tell a few jokes, seem to be keeping most people satisfied in the meantime.
 
BuckeyeMac said:
Not sure if this is possible already, but can Siri remind you of calendar events?

For example, today is my dad's birthday, I have practice tonight, and the wife and I have an event to go grocery shopping.

Is there a setting that Siri will update me at the beginning of the day with all of these calendar events?
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I think you can say stuff like "What's on my agenda today?" or "What do I have to do today?" and Siri will give you a rundown. Not sure how specific you can or need to be, I don't actually have an iPhone right now.

jW
 
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