
Siri, Why Are You So Underwhelming? - llambda
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/02/siri-why-are-you-so-underwhelming/
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cheald
Two things:

1) The anthromorphization of Siri as "she" really bugs me. It's software. It's
not your assistant, your chat buddy, or your pet. It's an amped-up ALICE. This
anthromorphization ascribes attributes that _don't exist in the software_ like
sentience and actual intelligence. It contributes to point 2, wherein:

2) If you're underwhelmed that Siri isn't perfect, it's because you were sold
perfect - Apple has some of the best marketers on the planet, and they sold
you a science fiction dream and then you were disappointed when you didn't get
it. The long and short of it is that Siri isn't a learning, adaptive AI - it's
a voice control system with a short-term history and some clever responses
baked in. It's a very good voice control system, and the developers have done
a great job of giving the appearance of a personality, but it's basically an
evolved Speak-N-Say.

If you stop expecting Siri to be a Star Trek shipboard AI that can understand
the intent in your every query and return information to you instantly in
perfectly-inflected English, you'll be a lot happier (though probably a bit
less impressed) with it.

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waterlesscloud
While that's all true, the majority of the article has nothing to do with any
of that.

It's mostly about basic functionality that's very reasonable to expect, but
that for whatever reason doesn't work.

~~~
cheald
It's reasonable to expect if you expect Siri to be intuitive or adaptive. The
problem is that it isn't, because it's a preprogrammed list of contextual
responses, and the user is _always_ going to have a longer list of things they
want to do than the programmer anticipated. There's always going to be some
degree of disappointment there as long as Siri is marketed as a thinking,
intelligent assistant.

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nopassrecover
A pretty fundamental example that underwhelmed was "what time is it?" (I'm in
Australia). Siri responded with "Sorry, I don't know the time in 123
StreetImOn Street". This is doubly "amusing", as if I ask "where I am" Siri
will tell me maps aren't supported outside the US. Long story short, to find
out where I am I need to ask for the time.

