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Leaked Apple meeting shows how dire the Siri situation is

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Re: Leaked Apple meeting shows how dire the Siri situation is

#21

Post by dismalaf »

jsheard wrote: post #9
resoluteteeth wrote: post #4

I have an android phone and switching google assistant to gemini made it worse for the fairly basic things I actually use google assistant for, like setting reminders, so I switched it back. Are people really clamoring for AI in the voice assistant on their phone?

> so I switched it back. Google has helpfully decided that you don't actually want to do that: https://blog.google/products/gemini/google-assistant-gemini-... later this year, the classic Google Assistant will no longer be accessible on most mobile devices

The Gemini based assistant has been getting better... It was weird to see the massive step backwards though.

Re: Leaked Apple meeting shows how dire the Siri situation is

#22

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

djohnston wrote: post #2

This problem of non-technical product folks over-promising features is going to get much worse in the age of LLMs. The models are incredibly adept at providing a proof-of-concept. But it's often a monumental endeavour to cross the gap between 70% and 90% accurcacy; 90%-95% even more. This long-tail pain isn't new, but the ability for non-technical folks to poke a model on a chat site and then assume their idea is rea…

> The models are incredibly adept at providing a proof-of-concept. But it's often a monumental endeavour to cross the gap

That's not just with LLMs. This has been an Achille's heel of demos for decades.

It's usually quite easy to make a demo of something sexy, but making it ship, is a very, very different thing.

This is made exponentially worse, by managers thinking that the demo means "we're almost ready," and even by the engineers, themselves, who are often not experienced enough to understand that demo != ship. Also, it has been my experience, that researchers that come up with amazing ideas, have absolutely no appreciation for what it takes to turn their ideas into ship product. Since Apple is all about ship product, they have to bridge that gulf. They are trying to commoditize something that is mostly buzz and raw research, right now.

I'm really pretty jaded about ML and LLMs in general, right now. I feel as if a whole bunch of really sexy demos were released, creating a huge level of buzz, but that the shipping product is still a ways off.

Re: Leaked Apple meeting shows how dire the Siri situation is

#23

Post by dehrmann »

harrall wrote: post #12

I know Apple has been known to wait until a technology was very mature before putting it into a product, sometimes years after competitors had already done so. But Apple Intelligence seems like the complete opposite… like they had to have something now .

It's not even to the level of Apple Intelligence. If I tell Siri to set a timer for 5 minutes, it goes off, and I say "Hey Siri, stop alarm," it stops my daily wake-up alarm, not the timer. It feels like Siri hasn't gotten any better in the past decade.

Re: Leaked Apple meeting shows how dire the Siri situation is

#24

Post by softwaredoug »

crooked-v wrote: post #5

The basic problem here for Apple is that LLMs will never actually be able to avoid prompt injection issues, and the entire "personal awareness" set of functionality they're trying to make uses LLMs. Unless somebody at Apple invents a new state of the art, it's not going to happen. With that said, I'm surprised they haven't yet at least replaced the 'dumb' Siri commands with something that's effectively an LLM transla…

I’m not sure I want / need an LLM for the handful of basic commands I want Siri to do in the car with no complication. Siri is good at some straightforward command patterns. And that’s how users have been trained.

Adding an LLM feels like a solution looking for a problem

Re: Leaked Apple meeting shows how dire the Siri situation is

#26

Post by softwaredoug »

It’s one thing to chat with an LLM about information/knowledge. It’s another completely as a user to understand which actions it can take on your behalf. That seems like the disconnect.

What would be nice if an LLM could just exist to tell me what Siri is capable of. As I usually blindly stumble into its capabilities.

Re: Leaked Apple meeting shows how dire the Siri situation is

#27

Post by binarymax »

The personal context issue could have been solved long before LLMs appeared.

My foil for this has always been the simple request from Siri: "Take me home".

Apple and my device know where I live. I have even registered "home" in Apple maps. This is not a huge leap, and this is not even something that requires an LLM. But it does force the featureset and capability to be better. This was a problem in 2015. 10 years later I still can't make this simple request.

I don't know why Apple just froze Siri and put it on life support. They could have been doing far better in this space.

Re: Leaked Apple meeting shows how dire the Siri situation is

#29

Post by wongarsu »

softwaredoug wrote: post #24
crooked-v wrote: post #5

The basic problem here for Apple is that LLMs will never actually be able to avoid prompt injection issues, and the entire "personal awareness" set of functionality they're trying to make uses LLMs. Unless somebody at Apple invents a new state of the art, it's not going to happen. With that said, I'm surprised they haven't yet at least replaced the 'dumb' Siri commands with something that's effectively an LLM transla…

I’m not sure I want / need an LLM for the handful of basic commands I want Siri to do in the car with no complication. Siri is good at some straightforward command patterns. And that’s how users have been trained. Adding an LLM feels like a solution looking for a problem

Yes, for users that have been conditioned on how to talk to Siri, there is no point adding an LLM layer. But for everyone else an LLM might add a more natural and forgiving interface. Also an interface that might be more open to exploration, if you can describe a goal and the LLM picks whatever command it feels fits that intent.

I can absolutely see an argument that it should be a feature power users can turn off to keep the "original" Siri experience

Re: Leaked Apple meeting shows how dire the Siri situation is

#30

Post by xmddmx »

binarymax wrote: post #27

The personal context issue could have been solved long before LLMs appeared. My foil for this has always been the simple request from Siri: "Take me home". Apple and my device know where I live. I have even registered "home" in Apple maps. This is not a huge leap, and this is not even something that requires an LLM. But it does force the featureset and capability to be better. This was a problem in 2015. 10 years lat…

FYI, I find that "navigate home" works, if you want to get home. (I agree with your complaint however that Siri is brain dead much of the time)
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