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Walt Mossberg Calls Siri 'Too Limited and Unreliable' to Compete in 'Coming AI Wars'

Regarding Mossberg's attention grabbing headline question: "Why does Siri seem so dumb?" Sadly, it's a question he never really attempts to answer.

Comparing Siri to other systems (which collect and analyze far more personal data), I'm pretty sure he knows the "answer," as many do, and is being incredibly disingenuous posing the question. But that's what a lot of tech journalism is about today.
 
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Siri is stupid even when it comes to the basics. Simple weather question - "what is the weather like today?" and Siri fails to mention rain, snow or wind - it only gives temperature.

I am also pissed that she knows nothing about Formula 1 or was clueless about Olympics. This just shows how crappy the Siri is and now we have the same crap on the outdated computers.
 
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Traverse said:
Siri's good for simple things like "Remind me to..." or "wake me up at..." but that's really just voice commands which tech has been able to do since the early 2000s. When Forstall announced Siri he said "the ability to understand what you mean and act on it...that's the breakthrough" and Siri has never been able to do that to me. It just recognized certain phrases.

I'm shocked at what Siri can't do. I can imagine some common stuff that Siri still can't do like:
  • "What time is XXXX on TV tonight?"
  • "What channel is XXXX on?"
  • "How much is XXXX on Amazon?"
  • "Check for new emails."
  • "When was my last email from X?"
  • "Text XXXX about [subject] in one hour."
  • "What's the best way to go to work this morning."

Some of those things are fairly advanced but with Apple's tight software integration and 5 years of Siri use I would think Apple could have taken it farther. And all this is ignoring the accuracy rates of speech recognition.


------
Some super cool things that could leverage app integration would be thinks like:
  • "Order my usual pizza from X."
  • "Open X files and send them as a PDF to XX"
  • "Back up my system to Time Machine and then put the computer to sleep."
  • "Retrive [file name] from my last time Machine backup."
  • "Copy [folder name] to iCloud Drive
Click to expand...
This is a good wish list, but the answers may not be so simple as you think.

"How much is XXXX on Amazon", for example often brings up several different answers even when you search the Amazon site.
 
I think Craig F said awhile back that Siri functional it was hampered by the mic. I'm thinking there is some kernel of truth to it just comparing audio in the video recordings made by my iPhone vs the more sensitive stereo mic on my Galaxy phones. The sound is dull and a bit muffled and flat on the iPhone. I think the mic is failing to pick up what is said to it a good amount of the time.

Of course even when it does get the words right, it fails to process context and produce the desired results much of the time.

My experience with Cortana and Google Now yield better results most of the time when the device "hears" my words correctly. But I use Cortana on a Surface and the mic must not be that great either because it gets my words wrong about as often as Siri does on an iPhone.

Google Now on the Samsung hears me correctly more often and is better at autocorrecting my words to ones that make better sense when it initially transcribes my words incorrectly, after I have finished the sentence.

I've got a Google Pixel on order. It will be interesting to see how the new integration of Google Now as Google Assistant turns out. But it will require me to let Google track all of my web searches and pretty much stalk me.

So I appreciate Apple trying to get results on a par with Google's without amassing data about us that is not kept on our device.
 
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Well, at least Siri has gotten some massive performance improvements vs. a couple years ago... :)
 
maxsix said:
I must say I never expected Walt Mossberg, the long time Apple Shill who was chosen and personally groomed by Steve Jobs, to ever question anything Apple. But with Jobs dead and no longer available to look after his charges like Walt, David Pogue, and others it's more of a level playing field, Mossberg feels free to speak out.
Click to expand...

With Steve in charge Siri wouldn't suck so much at this point in time. Everyone is tired of waiting and listening endless Tim's babbling: "oh, we have the best pipeline EVER, we are definitely committed to this and looking into that, such great things are coming". Meanwhile others like Google and Microsoft and even Amazon are simply doing their job and actually progress and innovate with their products leaving Apple behind.
Finally people start to speak out.
 
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"It just works-"

"Sorry, I couldn't find 'It Just Works' in your contacts. Would you like me to try online?"

"***** on a cross!"

simpsonargh.gif
 
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So true. I use Siri on a regular basis for setting timers only. But thats is. Wish it could do more.

First, Siri should be able to set a second language. When I say "play some Foo Fighters" or "how did the Green Bay Packers play" it won't understand me because it can't pronounce or understand english words if my language is set to german.

Second, Siri should communicate in context, like search for contact X, what is his email, add a second email to him and so on. I guess Siri is made to do this but it doesn't work. Never.

Third, Siri never learns when I correct her. Like when I correct Bäcker to Packers, next time I ask her about the Packers she understands Bäcker again. What the hell?? How often should I correct her?

And lastly, why can't Siri set a timer on my Mac? This is the only useful thing Siri can do on my iPhone and this is blocked on Mac OS.

So I guess they are right, people don't use Siri for complex things. They just gave up. So sad.
 
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"And why is this making news now?"

because Walt Mossberg said it.

"And why does that matter?"

...

it's Walt Mossberg.
 
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Siri founders quit in apparent frustration. Their new startup was acquired by Samsung within the year. You might describe Samsung's actions as photo-copying and be right. Arguing that Timmy and Co. did not mis-handle what was is essence their most valuable asset is harder. Hopefully Timmy decides he's got more work to do. However, having received millions (likely hundreds of millions) to date is likely to have elevated T's Hubris levels to the point of "...I really don't give a damn." This will be known down the road as "The Jony Ive" disease. Steve was immune.
 
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JesperA said:
So frustrating when Siri don't know what you mean when asking, but in the answer "she" answers with the very thing she did not understand when telling her, like: (in Swedish on 1 of our form of "hour", have not tried the English version)

Me: - Set the timer on 1 hour
Siri: - How long time?
Me: - 1 hour
Siri: - I don't know what you mean, for how long?
Me: - 1 HOUR......
Siri: - I don't understand
Me: - 60 minutes
Siri: Setting timer on 1 hour
Click to expand...
IMG_1216.jpg IMG_1217.jpg

Do you have it set to Swedish by default? Siri can't seem comprehend anything that's not straight up American English apparently.
 
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I never bother using Siri except to play music in my car. It actually works pretty well at that. So while it might be behind, at least it works for my uses. Oh well :-(
 
I have an iPhone 5, since then Siri just once gave me what I was looking for, a song in Youtube, and that was like 4 month ago. The application is useless for practical use.
 
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tekchic said:
Siri sets my alarms every night, and adds items to my Grocery list in Reminder. That's it. Apart from that, things like "Call my dad" completely confuzzles her where she tries to call ME... yet "Call my father" works fine. No logical sense whatsoever.

I've pretty much given up on Siri because 99% of the time, anything out of the ordinary (timers, reminder items) seem to just get me a snarky, useless response which triggers my nerd rage. :D
Click to expand...

The logical failure is in your assumption that the slang for father, Dad, is part of her vernacular. If you want a fat repository of words and their slang equivalence; combined with their Digraph relationships in common vernacular, to their shortest-path results via Djikstra's Networking algorithms, but not have any of this discrete/finite automata stored on your phone, thus force a Cloud storage extension which requires deep search and stored procedures for repetitive and weighted patterns, while also having Apple still not store your data [privacy!!], then you and the rest of your Generation Lost don't understand the technology behind it.
 
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With Siri, I look for specifics. For Example: Hey Siri, what's the weather like outside? Siri Response: Brr...it's cold out their, you'll need jacket.

Thats the issue I have. I want details, like temperature, predicted forecast, etc. Not these edgey responses that are over played and sarcastic.

The smaller tasks with scheduling and calendar events to name a few, Siri seems to handle well.

I'm not bashing Siri, only pointing my experiences.
 
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Thanks Walt. Apple ignores the rest of us, at least they listen to you.

It was fun when it came out but I turn Siri off now, as it is rubbish. I was playing with it a couple weeks ago with iOS 10 and it is terrible. It does nothing for me.

I'd try Google Now, but my Nexus 5x is where it belongs, in a box in a drawer.
 
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