Siri rarely understands anything I say anymore. I used to be able to say, "Hey Siri! Send a text message to ...." and it used to work. Now not only does Siri not send the message, but she wants to phone a person whose name sounds nothing like the person for whom I asked or says she cannot understand or fulfill my request. Yep. Siri is utterly useless in English (and probably every other language, too).
If Siri is the future, I have no fear of AI. Siri proves that it is possible for a computer to become less proficient and even, dare I say, dumber.
I know. What happened to Siri? Sometimes she is on point and other times she's a hot mess. I have enough stress in my life and I don't need Siri interactions adding to the difficulties I endure with real human beings, so I don't use her much anymore. And I do miss Siri...the way she used to work for me.
I am going through something similar with my mom. She is losing her hearing, but refuses to get fitted for hearing aids, because she already sees too many doctors and is fed up with all the appointments.
I will try to have one conversation with her and end up in a subject entirely different by the time my mom completely mis-hears me and responds to what she thinks I said instead. Plus, she may have the early stages of dementia. It's hard to tell without getting the hearing problems addressed first.
Eventually she will agree to get her hearing aids, but for now it's a mess trying to communicate with her. As with Siri, we have to be loud and speak very slowly and clearly and simplify complex discussions to easily parsed sentences and phrases to ensure she had heard everything correctly. I don't know how my dad puts up with it.
I don't mean to equate the struggles of a real human being to the shortcomings of a badly maintained AI, but the difficulties and frustrations and aborted conversations are shockingly similar in feel from my perspective.
So, when I read stuff like Apple investing in weird seemingly pointless stuff like Planet of the Apps or sinking one billion dollars into a Chinese company whose relationship with Apple is unclear at present...I get a little bit frustrated with Apple for dropping the ball on this. I know Apple Music has nothing to do with this nor do any plans to get into self driving cars...but it's just human nature to connect all of these disparate dots and use it to accuse the management of losing the plot. Lol...it's practically a hobby on MacRumors.
