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Siri, What Time Is It in London?

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Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#531

Post by mthoms »

ensiferum wrote: post #141
mattlondon wrote: post #76

I get this problem all the time and I live in "the right" London so it is not just a "nearest London" thing. It is not just digital assistants, but so many other things like Google maps, e-commerce sites, address auto-completes etc seem to assume that I want the North American one with a population of 300k that no one knows about, not the one that everyone has heard of with a population of 9 million. I've always just…

Don't forget the "world series" for major league baseball played in the US and Canada. ;-)

Along the same lines, I always laugh at announcers proclaiming the Super Bowl winners as the worlds best (or something along those lines).

I mean, it is true. But it still irks me for some reason.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#532

Post by sangnoir »

ngngngng wrote: post #530

There's a Woodland Hills in Utah and a Woodland Hills in California. If you ask Google what the weather is in Woodland Hills, it will ALWAYS give you the weather for California. Even if your current location is Woodland Hills, Utah and even if your address is set to Woodland Hills Utah in your Google account or Google home.

Why would you need to specify your location? You can just ask "How is the weather?" or "What will be the weather like tomorrow?"

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#533

Post by 0zymandiass »

kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #523

Siri doesn't know that my front door is called "FRONT DOOR". I only have one smart lock, which works perfectly, and it is called "FRONT DOOR" in HomeKit. When I ask Siri about my FRONT DOOR she responds that she cannot find it. When I ask Siri about the status of my DOOR, she responds with "The FRONT DOOR is locked/unlocked". I'll then say 'Alright Siri you literally just used the phrase "FRONT DOOR" five seconds ago…

I don't know if it works there, but siri couldn't understand one of my contacts names

When it read back super incorrectly from an alias, I said something to the effect of "could you pronounce that correctly?" and it asked me to say it

Since then, it's understood that person's name. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It really needs to expose the option to train those easily

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#534

Post by pdonis »

pow_pp_-1_v wrote: post #475
mojuba wrote: post #75

This example illustrates how difficult AGI is and how far we are from it. We, humans, tend to take advantage of the context to make communication simpler and shorter. Just think about all the implications of this one simple question: what time is it in London? Or e.g. how can I get from London to Dublin? If the person asking the question lives in Ohio, they may actually be talking about London OH (or Dublin OH). Some…

The solution for it is, sadly, more data. So I imagine if Google or Apple can listen, "see" and has access to your every electronic communication do. They could eventually build a model that "knows" everything about you. I am pretty sure we have the technology to do it. But the privacy implications for this is terrifying.

> The solution for it is, sadly, more data.

I don't see why that would be necessary, since a human does not need to know everything about you or have access to everything you've ever communicated to anyone to guess accurately that when you ask about "London" you probably mean London, England.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#535

Post by ancarda »

gambiting wrote: post #223
Kye wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. All the apps that default to 24 hour time when it's not what my device is set to are annoying.

Would I be incorrect to assume that something like 17:00 will be understood by literally everyone in the world(if maybe not the preferred format) though? Using AM/PM is worse in a sense that say someone in Poland will literally have no idea which means which. 24 hour clock has no ambiguity. Unless I'm wrong and there are countries or cultures which literally won't understand what time 17:00 is?

Hell, I live in the UK and I can't stand 24-hour time ("military time"). I have to convert in my head every single time by subtracting 12 to figure out what the time actually is.

I hate 24 hour time so much. I won't use software that can't be configured to AM/PM.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#537

Post by ghaff »

sangnoir wrote: post #532
ngngngng wrote: post #530

There's a Woodland Hills in Utah and a Woodland Hills in California. If you ask Google what the weather is in Woodland Hills, it will ALWAYS give you the weather for California. Even if your current location is Woodland Hills, Utah and even if your address is set to Woodland Hills Utah in your Google account or Google home.

Why would you need to specify your location? You can just ask "How is the weather?" or "What will be the weather like tomorrow?"

Maybe you're traveling and want to know what the weather is at home.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#538

Post by killion »

The fact that there isn't a feedback mechanism to let the Siri team know that it responded incorrectly tells me everything I need to know.

Until they have real metrics around how often Siri fails they will continue to think that their correct response rate is great.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#539

Post by pdonis »

jason0597 wrote: post #471
larrik wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually didn't realize am/pm wasn't something Europeans did...

In Greece it's sometimes used. 10:00π.μ. = 10:00 προ μεσημβρίας = 10:00 before noon 10:00μ.μ. = 10:00 μετά μεσημβρίαν = 10:00 after noon

Transliterating this into the Latin alphabet is fun since it gives "p.m." for before noon.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#540

Post by Avamander »

aib wrote: post #177
mattlondon wrote: post #76

I get this problem all the time and I live in "the right" London so it is not just a "nearest London" thing. It is not just digital assistants, but so many other things like Google maps, e-commerce sites, address auto-completes etc seem to assume that I want the North American one with a population of 300k that no one knows about, not the one that everyone has heard of with a population of 9 million. I've always just…

Can we please also take a moment to wish tiny inconveniences upon designers of applications which ignore my locale and present me with "11:06 AM" or worse, "04/05/2020"?

So most of Google? Google Calendar, Search, Maps and others all tend to be very stupid in that aspect.
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