NEVER MISS AN ISSUE OF STUFF! SEE PAGE 94
ey, Siri! Why are you so bad at
answering my questions when
Alexa does it so well?
There is a perception Apple’s lost
its way regarding voice assistants. Ask Alexa
almost anything and you’ll mainly get useful
answers. With Siri, there’s a good chance you’ll
be told it doesn’t know or “I’ve found this on the
web” – with ‘this’ being only vaguely related
to what you asked. Apple execs counter by
saying Siri is supposed to be a ‘get stuff done
machine’ and wasn’t engineered to be Trivial
Pursuit. Also, Apple is hamstrung here by its
philosophy of prioritising privacy.Hey, Siri! Do you feel bad about that, given
that Apple invented voice assistants?
Er, we’re not Siri. And Apple didn’t invent voice
assistants. Siri evolved from a US government
project to create a cognitive assistant that
could learn and organise. On iPhone, it actually
started out as a third-party app primarily
for guiding you to entertainment and making
reservations. Apple took a shine to it, bought
it, and then fused Siri to iOS for the launch
of the iPhone 4s. Siri then stunned the world,
leading to the competition frantically making
their own equivalents... which later blazed past
Siri, because data.Hey, Siri! You didn’t answer me. Should I ask
Alexa? How about Google? Or Cortana?
Sigh. We’re still not Siri – and we doubt Siri feels
anything, given that it hasn’t (yet) attained
sentience. As for Apple, it’s expanded Siri
with new capabilities, on-device learning
and contextual awareness regarding what
you do, in order to anticipate apps you’d like
to launch or information you’d find useful. So
while it might not accurately tell you what the
smallest dinosaur was or the name of Napalm
Death’s third album, it’ll help you get things
done. We’ll take that — even if our Trivial Pursuit
scores are way down.
[ WordsCraig Grannell]Siri
H
RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES 2011Link’s
a-weakening
The original voice
behind the British Siri was
Jon Briggs, famous for his
work on The Weakest Link.
There’s a joke in there
somewhere about Siri’s
position among voice
assistants...