Backchannel:
This story of Siri’s transformation, revealed for the first time here, might raise an eyebrow in much of the artificial intelligence world. Not that neural nets improved the system — of course they would do that — but that Apple was so quietly adept at doing it. Until recently, when Apple’s hiring in the AI field has stepped up and the company has made a few high-profile acquisitions, observers have viewed Apple as a laggard in what is shaping up as the most heated competition in the industry: the race to best use those powerful AI tools.
While other companies do their innovation in public, Apple has always been very good at making things behind the scenes and only releasing them when they are ready for the general public to use.
Too soon. Recently Siri forgot how to navigate to my home address after my utterance of “take me home”. She often mispronounces my wife’s name after numerous times correcting her. Siri is not an assistant she’s a barely workable tool with limited functionality.
These pieces always sound great when ladened with scientific terms and heaps of feel good pixie dust but where the rubber meets the road Siri is not getting it done. I’m sure somewhere there’s “real” AI that is an incredible achievement but that certainly isn’t on a mobile phone you can buy today.
The incredulity of a company that can’t accomplish tasks like ensuring proper iCloud sync of Core Data or merge Apple ID or a myriad of other pestering issues suddenly unlocking the key to machine intelligence is farcical.