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Siri, What Time Is It in London?

daringfireball.net

581–590 of 776 posts

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#581

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…

Not in my experience. This is how 80% of my Google Assistant conversations go:

Me: "Hey Google, play Nine Inch Nails, you know, the one in my Google Play library"

Google: "OK, playing Nine Inch Snails, a band nobody on Earth has heard of and is definitely not in your library!"

Me: (Repeat a few times, trying all kinds of accents, eventually I get tired of songs about nine inch somethings, and I pull the car over and type in by hand what I'm looking for.)

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#582

>If you had a human assistant and asked them “What’s the time in London?” and they honestly thought the best way to answer that question was to give you the time for the nearest London, which happened to be in Ontario or Kentucky, you’d fire that assistant. An obvious sign that you would be a shit employer to work for. OP is probably exaggerating here (at least I hope so), but if you were to fire someone over this wi…

I'm with the author here. There's a certain amount of base knowledge that not having is just indicative of general cluelessness. It's like if you asked someone to get you a cup of coffee and they came back with a measuring cup of coffee beans, it's not that you can't educate them that you actually wanted them to grind the beans and filter some water through it. It's that they're going to screw up lots of other stuff…

>You probably wouldn't fire them after the first time, but do you really think someone who makes that mistake won't just be more trouble than help to work with?

I've worked with some clueless people. All of which were capable of learning with some instruction and guidance.

Had a cameraman once forget to press "record" at the beginning of an event - nearly costing me a client. I was pissed at the ignorance of the mistake, but I ate a lot of the frustration, mentioned that I need him to occasionally ensure the camera is on, and recording during events and...it never happened again.

I wouldn't fire someone for bringing me a cup of coffee beans instead of a brewed cup of coffee. I would let them go if they kept doing it after being provided instruction.

As an aside, I never ask anyone to make me coffee unless they are a trained barista, and even they make drinks that aren't what I want on occasion. Though I see your point, there is way too much preference in how to make an ideal "cup of coffee" for this to really be comparable, in my opinion.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#583

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…

About once a week Siri and I have this conversation: Me: "Siri, turn off the bedroom lights." Siri: "OK. Your 6am alarm is off." For the most part Siri works for me, with the exception of the above and her insistence on adding "ginger ale" to my grocery list as two items. /Native English speaker, specifically trained in non-regional diction because I used to work on-air in radio.

>Native English speaker, specifically trained in non-regional diction because I used to work on-air in radio.

Well there's your problem (/s): https://youtube.com/watch?v=Avp9aUkM5g0

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#584
Once I had a new assistant and I asked her to book me a flight to Boston. She went to the travel booking system, typed in Boston, then called me back confused. "Which Boston do you want? There are 8 of them?"

I was caught off guard and told her I'd prefer the one in Massachusetts. I did not fire her. She was young, had a poor general education, and had never traveled outside her home state. Those things do not make her stupid.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#586
post #505
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…

Anyone want to guess where this sign is located? https://imgur.com/XyTJHEc

Looks to be in Kentucky. Has both a Paris and a London, only 90 miles apart, so it's easy enough to pick a point on highway 64 that would be nearer to Paris either coming from Louisville or Huntington. Impossible to know which direction though without more context.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#588
post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you had not worked at Google at the time, there’s basically zero chance you could’ve got anyone at the company to do anything about it.

My address has been blatantly broken in Google Maps for years now. When you enter it, for some reason it deletes the house number and just looks up the street, which ends up pointing to somewhere about a 10 minute drive away. For example, if my address was "123 Elm Street" it just ignores the "123" and searches for "Elm Street" instead. We have to give special instructions all the time to delivery drivers and other p…

I had an issue with my own address on google maps (not as severe as this, it just had the wrong zipcode). After trying to correct it using the tools built in to maps 3 times and having my correction rejected every time, I tweeted my complaint @googlemaps, did a quick DM back and forth and it was fixed shortly thereafter.

(please do not take this as an endorsement of google maps support, merely an anecdote of what did work for me that I hope might help you)

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#589
post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you had not worked at Google at the time, there’s basically zero chance you could’ve got anyone at the company to do anything about it.

My address has been blatantly broken in Google Maps for years now. When you enter it, for some reason it deletes the house number and just looks up the street, which ends up pointing to somewhere about a 10 minute drive away. For example, if my address was "123 Elm Street" it just ignores the "123" and searches for "Elm Street" instead. We have to give special instructions all the time to delivery drivers and other p…

Same here. Delivery people who have never been to my house consistently go to my neighbor's house a mile away because that's where Google sends them. What's so frustrating about this is that both houses have very clear address markers on the street. But people now trust Google more than they trust actual address signs IRL.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#590
Once I asked Siri for the current calendar week and got the answer 'I don't understand your question'. I reworded my question several times, still without success. At best it wanted to make a new entry in the calendar app. In most possibly useful cases it simply fails.
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