Apple on Thursday said it is suspending a program called grading that helps the company improve Siri for its users. The process uses snippets of audio files to determine whether Siri heard the command correctly or whether it was invoked by mistake.
“We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy,” Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch. “While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading.”
To be clear, Apple never hid the fact it was using snippets of audio to improve Siri, but a piece from The Guardian quoting stories of sex and crime was enough for Apple to reevaluate its process.
I understand Apple’s point of view, and something had to be done to quell any fears from its users about privacy. I think they have the best solution by allowing people to opt-in to help the company improve Siri.
I will be one of those people.
I believe that if I’m going to point out the flaws and mistakes that Siri makes—and I often do—I should also be willing to help improve the service if allowed to do so. Apple is giving me that opportunity.
Sharing those snippets with Apple doesn’t concern me in the least, especially when you consider what they use.
Here is what Apple told The Guardian:
“A small portion of Siri requests are analyzed to improve Siri and dictation. User requests are not associated with the user’s Apple ID. Siri responses are analyzed in secure facilities and all reviewers are under the obligation to adhere to Apple’s strict confidentiality requirements.” The company added that a very small random subset, less than 1% of daily Siri activations, are used for grading, and those used are typically only a few seconds long.
I understand that a lot of people will not want to send Apple their data, even under those conditions. That’s their choice.
I also understand that it’s oversimplifying the matter to say, “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” However, what I don’t want to see is people complaining about Siri when they have no interest in helping to fix it.
I want to be part of the solution.
I’m 100% in too!
MeToo in 100%
Ditto.
Yep. This is like, when people complain about a political issue, my first question is ‘did you vote’? If not, I tune them out. Same here… if you’re not willing to opt in, I can’t take you seriously when you complain about Siri’s accuracy. The sole exception would be someone who routinely has conversations about confidential info, e.g. a doctor talking to her patients, etc.
Couldn’t the machines have just analyzed the voice patterns to detect if the command was followed by the same command followed by cuss words?
Count me in.
I very rarely use Siri for anything more complex than setting a cooking timer. So my participation wouldn’t be very meaningful for the aggregate.
I use Siri many times everyday. I’ll definitely be opting in. I’m all for a better Siri.
I watched a couple videos from some guys showing how to turn off all sorts of tracking things in the iPhone, mainly to stop the iPhone pinging constantly and eating battery life. (One guy actually worked for Apple for a while.) They claimed the location and other information they were turning off just gave Apple info and didn’t help you any, but I wasn’t too sure. Turning off much of the location things would stop the helpful tips that Siri puts on my screen now and then because it has noticed a pattern for it. Other things they suggested also felt like turning them off would mean I could no longer be critical if something didn’t do what I wanted. So, I’ll be opting in for Siri improvement, too.
Agreed. The best solution to anything that might result in privacy issues is an opt in program. I’ll be opting in as well because, in my view, you can’t bitch about how bad Siri is without doing what you can to make it better. With that being said it would be awesome if you could tell iOS in some fashion when Siri screws up and opt to have the data associated with it sent directly to Apple. That kind of granular control would make the feedback more accurate and make users who want that level of control feel better about exactly what data Apple is getting.
I will too. I was saddened to hear Jason Snell say on Upgrade that he would not.