Why does Siri seem so dumb? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#61

Post by jmiserez » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 5:47 PM UTC

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #32

> When I asked, “What is the weather on Crete?” Siri gave me the weather for Crete, Illinois, a small village which — while I’m sure it’s great — isn’t what most people mean Most of the narrative about Apple's maps products has simply been "Apple bad, Google good" and hasn't looked much deeper than this (with the exception of Justin O'Beirne's cartographic commentary, which is remarkably detailed though much of it is…

I'll disagree about them having good source data, or if they have it they're not showing it.

Public transport info is only available for very small set of predefined cities (e.g SF, Paris). Apple Maps doesn't even show the stops on the map, when every OSM app has them.

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#62

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

gxs wrote: post #35

fizzbatter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, is this the the actual "Google Assistant" you're referring to? Or simply Google Now? I believe there is a difference, but that's purely speculation on my park. I'll be able to test it more in ~2 weeks when my Pixel XL arrives.

Ah good point - this might be google now. It's the voice search feature on the search bar that persists on all home screens. Didn't realize they might be different products.

[deleted]

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#63

Post by oridecon » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

fizzbatter wrote: post #34

gxs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW none of those work with the all mighty google's personal assistant either on my nexus 5x.

Out of curiosity, is this the the actual "Google Assistant" you're referring to? Or simply Google Now? I believe there is a difference, but that's purely speculation on my park. I'll be able to test it more in ~2 weeks when my Pixel XL arrives.

FYI you can already use the new Google Assistant in several devices http://www.xda-developers.com/xda-external-link/google-assis...

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#64

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 6:25 PM UTC

Aardwolf wrote: post #44

logfromblammo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait until personal agent AI has advanced to the point where I can ask that and hear "Cerulean blue. Cerulean makes me think of a breeze. A gentle breeze..."

The future AI will find your post on the internet and will answer this as a joke.

Dangit. I shouldn't have said anything, then. I want my personal AI agent to watch all the movies and television shows I have ever watched, and read all the books I have ever read, and play all the video games I have ever played, so that it can make obscure references that I can understand at the appropriate times.

In this case, it would have to know the various names of sky-blue colors, like "azure", "cerulean", "process cyan", or technical answers like "transparent with Rayleigh scattering" or "hue value between 190 and 200 degrees". Then it would have to cross reference that with things I have already seen or read, and then prioritize several potential responses before finally playing me an audio clip from X-Files 3:17 "Pusher", when the eponymous character is being transported in the back of a cop car.

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#65

Post by x1798DE » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 7:05 PM UTC

trdrake wrote: post #40

bobviolier wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are asking specifically for _who_ somebody is, it should tell you who that person is - not give the contact card, because that card does not tell you who somebody is. At least, that's what I would expect if I asked who somebody is.

So, here we are arguing over what that utterance means, but we're blaming Siri for not doing the right thing...

I don't think anyone's saying that the question "who is x" ever means "give me the contact information for x". They are just arguing as to whether or not Siri's counter-intuitive behavior may be a reasonable response, given that it's a computer and not a human. This is not a hard question for humans.

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#66

Post by PacketPaul » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

I also think Siri fails with Text messaging. I should be able to have an IM discussion using just my voice. But the Siri interface is simply not that involved. I'm constantine having to say "Read Latest Text Message".

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#67

Post by fizzbatter » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

gxs wrote: post #35

fizzbatter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, is this the the actual "Google Assistant" you're referring to? Or simply Google Now? I believe there is a difference, but that's purely speculation on my park. I'll be able to test it more in ~2 weeks when my Pixel XL arrives.

Ah good point - this might be google now. It's the voice search feature on the search bar that persists on all home screens. Didn't realize they might be different products.

I believe they have added ML in the Assistant, along with some new features like context recognition. Granted, it's of course difficult to say how much is shared between Now and Assistant.

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#68

Post by vubuntu » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

gxs wrote: post #25

asd wrote: post #19

>>>But I suspect that people don’t ask those questions because, after trying a time or two and getting no answers or wrong answers, they just give up on Siri. Absolutely this. I mean, you try a few of this these "long tail" queries and you eventually say "Fuck it!" I attempt these "long tail" queries (which to me, that term sounds like some shitty play-it-down excuse from Apple) weekly just to see if Apple is finally…

FWIW none of those work with the all mighty google's personal assistant either on my nexus 5x.

"Ok google turn on/off the flash light" works on my motorola nexus 6

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#69

Post by gxs » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 8:02 PM UTC

vubuntu wrote: post #68

gxs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW none of those work with the all mighty google's personal assistant either on my nexus 5x.

"Ok google turn on/off the flash light" works on my motorola nexus 6

That's nice for you but the whole point of my comment was that I tried OP's commands.

Re: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

#70

Post by spacehunt » Wed, Oct 12, 2016, 8:09 PM UTC

givinguflac wrote: post #7

okket wrote: post #6

The main gripe I have with Siri is that is still can't understand bilingual (german/english) conversation. This makes this service unusable for me. How do you ask Siri for a song, a movie, a person name which happens to be english, when the device is set to german?

Honest question, do other assistants offer that? Just curious.

Google's voice recognition works well when it's English plus one other language. If neither is English (eg. Japanese + Cantonese) it doesn't work at all. Neither does the triple combination of English + Japanese + Cantonese work, even if explicitly specified in settings.