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Will Siri get better?

The AI isn't bad but it's a long way off passing the Turing test.

The one thing I hate about it, is it relies on external connections for the simplest of things. Fair enough if you are asking it about the weather but it's a pain in the bum if you just want to set a reminder for tomorrow.

Hopefully the next incarnation will have the power to handle SOME requests internally and only use external data or Apple's Siri server when it absolutely needs to.
 
sneaky butcher said:
you think they will add puerto rican accent to their database so it can understand the OP better ?
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Well In 2012, Siri will support additional languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish. If it doesn't understand a PR accent (while speaking English I presume), at least it will be able to understand Spanish.
 
Sdahe said:
What???... I lived in USA my whole childhood. I bearly knew spanish when I started talking english so I dont think I have such accent...
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haha ok well you never said that :p

thats voice recognition for you its just not reliable.
 
vitzr said:
I quote the OP's post:

"Since Siri is new and everyone is having so much fun with it"

Try reading this quote again. It seems like more & more people are misunderstanding what they read, no matter how clear it is written. Parsing words to meet ones needs is a poor approach.
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Weird Vitzr, Seems like every time I read one of your posts it's just...I don't know...mean? Why? You just seem so antagonistic. Read between the lines. The OP was/is obviously curious on other's opinions with Siri's developments.

Why do you participate here at MR?

Siri, as I see it, will become ubiquitous in the next 3-5 years...across all forms of "cell" or "mobile" communication. Google has it's own version...expect the new Window's line up to have some sort of dictation...with the talking on the cell phone while driving argument taking place across the nation...texting while driving, etc. I think it's an awesome achievement...and one that can ONLY get better. It's base station Wolfram Alpha is such an incredible "Knowledge Engine"...I just can't see it going anywhere but UP! Performance---and AI-wise.

Obviously...as someone else put it, Siri is a baby. I've already noticed improvements on my 4s. Either I'm learning to use it correctly or it's learning the way I speak...not sure. Either way, for me, while driving...I find it invaluable.

ymmv
 
iHateMacs said:
The AI isn't bad but it's a long way off passing the Turing test.
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Well in fairness IBM's Watson cannot pass the Turing test either :). But it beat above-average humans at Jeopardy.

Maybe we need a new test. Is AI about acting human or helping humans?

The one thing I hate about it, is it relies on external connections for the simplest of things. Fair enough if you are asking it about the weather but it's a pain in the bum if you just want to set a reminder for tomorrow.

Hopefully the next incarnation will have the power to handle SOME requests internally and only use external data or Apple's Siri server when it absolutely needs to.
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I agree. It's made worse since the servers that power Siri are not up to five nines reliability. So you can have great net access but still can't use Siri. Worse yet we must wait like an idiot only to be told "I'm sorry I can't help you now," 20 seconds later. Ugh.

I think the biggest obstacle to local Siri processing is the speech recognition, which is from Nuance, makers of Dragon Dictate, etc. Seems the smallest version they have--for PCs or macs not iOS--is several gigabytes in size. That does not factor in the processing requirements but since Dragon has been doing a pretty good job for years now I would say current iOS devices can handle it. It's worth noting that Nuance's own iOS apps need external processing as well; same as Siri.

Perhaps local recognition can be an option for those willing to put up with the space needed for it--similar to navigation apps with onboard maps that are several gigabytes in size.

What I do NOT want is it to revert to the--IMHO crappy--built in voice recognizer. It's just too poor compared to Nuance's. But some people have suggested auto-switching to it when Siri is inaccessible. All I know is my success rate with Siri is about 95%. With the built-in voice control it is 5% ("Play Born to Run." "Calling Mark Peterson" ring ring).




Michael
 
Just to clarify something here...

I said "do you think that Apple will make Siri better. Maybe give it more personality and make it more like talking to a human."

I know it would get better per se but what I mean by saying getting better is if Apple would give Siri a more human like personality.
 
Sdahe said:
Yes... I said I lived in USA during my childhood. I'm 37 now and living in Puerto Rico... :rolleyes:
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I understand that, I am not the one who made the comment. I was pointing out the reason another person on this forum made the puerto rican accent comment. :rolleyes:
 
akdj said:
Weird Vitzr, Seems like every time I read one of your posts it's just...I don't know...mean? Why? You just seem so antagonistic. Read between the lines. The OP was/is obviously curious on other's opinions with Siri's developments.

Why do you participate here at MR?
Click to expand...

I agree. His posts (at least the ones that I have read) are mostly pessimistic and condescending. Not only that but it seems that he complains about his 4S to the point where he is just trying to make us feel the same way about our phone. Every post where someone will be asking for help, Vitzr will chime in and say something like "Well, Apple didnt know what they were doing when they did blah blah blah, blah blah" or "Well I dont use that feature anyway, blah blah blah" or "Apple really should have done blah blah blah". And I love how his creepy signature talks about how his posts are "sarcastic" to cover up for his arrogance.

Not trying to go off topic, I'm just glad you called him out because I wanted to.
 
as someone who drives a manual I find siri useful. I have a dashboard mount for my phone and when I am coming and going to work I find it very easy to check out my day and send texts and schedule reminders. I do most of my real "thinking" in the car, and siri helps me do things before I forget. Once I get to work any productive thoughts I had in the car are usually immediately erased from my brain.

I'd have to assume that siri will get better, as this is still just the beta. I would like to be able to edit contacts and see some more app integration.
 
for siri to be any good it needs to copy what google have done with their voice stuff.

on android you can choose to associate voice commands with your google account. When it doesnt quite get what you say it gives you a list of options on what it thinks the words or phrase could be.

you then select the right one and it will associate those words with how you pronounce them. Essentially learning how you pronounce words

I dont know how this works in android 4 though with the real time display of words as you say them.
 
(Note: Poker Reference) I think Apple put a lot of their chips on the table with Siri. They didn't go all in, but they didn't just "check". They still have the option of putting more money on the table or folding. They will never go "all in" with Siri. If SJ were up there in the keynote in October. Siri would be a "hobby" and not "beta".
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A406 Safari/7534.48.3)

They can't pull/fold on something as major as Siri. Not when they used it to sell phones. They had a huge tv campaign and adds to sell the 4s using siri
People would be in uproar and rightly so. Beta or not it can't be pulled.
 
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