Siri's creators say they've made something better
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Siri's creators say they've made something better
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Re: Siri's creators say they've made something better
#2The example of the pizza ordering is technologically impressive, yes... But from an end-user perspective it is at best "as hard" as calling the pizza place and talking to a human taking your order.
There are many use cases where it could actually provide value, but I found it funny that they chose to demonstrate one to the press that really afforded end-users no advantage.
Re: Siri's creators say they've made something better
#3The example of the pizza ordering is technologically impressive, yes... But from an end-user perspective it is at best "as hard" as calling the pizza place and talking to a human taking your order. There are many use cases where it could actually provide value, but I found it funny that they chose to demonstrate one to the press that really afforded end-users no advantage.
What if the pizza cost half as much now because it didn't require a human to standby and take the order?
Re: Siri's creators say they've made something better
#4> It was their first real test of Viv, the artificial-intelligence technology that the team had been quietly building for more than year.
I think they mean "first real demonstration." It would have been tested thousands of times before reaching the board room.
That gripe aside, the real test (for me, at least) of whether a service like this will be usable is whether it can run offline without uploading my entire life to the mothership. I won't use Google Now or Siri or anything similar because it would make my life (even more of) an open book to a single huge provider. It's bad enough that Google (through Gmail) has access to my emails, I don't want them having a log of my moment-to-moment location, voice conversations, routines, etc.
Re: Siri's creators say they've made something better
#5The example of the pizza ordering is technologically impressive, yes... But from an end-user perspective it is at best "as hard" as calling the pizza place and talking to a human taking your order. There are many use cases where it could actually provide value, but I found it funny that they chose to demonstrate one to the press that really afforded end-users no advantage.
What if the pizza cost half as much now because it didn't require a human to standby and take the order?
I can already order my pizza with an app or with Yo Dominoes... and they cost the same...
Not sure if it's because the person on the phone is doing other stuff at the same time or if it's more like eBooks where they cost the same as Paperbacks because "more profit".
Re: Siri's creators say they've made something better
#6The example of the pizza ordering is technologically impressive, yes... But from an end-user perspective it is at best "as hard" as calling the pizza place and talking to a human taking your order. There are many use cases where it could actually provide value, but I found it funny that they chose to demonstrate one to the press that really afforded end-users no advantage.
What if the pizza cost half as much now because it didn't require a human to standby and take the order?
The real savings would come if you have a pizza bot that made pizzas without much human intervention and a drone picked it up and dropped it off and flew back to base.
Re: Siri's creators say they've made something better
#7According to an episode of Acquired[0], none of Siri's original technology is present in Apple's current products. Siri originally licensed Nuance's (also an SRI spin-out company) voice recognition technology and built some pretty (comparatively) simple tech on top of it, never changing out the speech-to-text engine. All current players (Google, Amazon, etc) use neural nets, so Apple scooped up many Nuance employees to double down and compete[1]. Rosenthal and Gilbert agreed that Siri was a failure: "the only thing I use Siri for is setting alarms." I'd have to agree from personal experience. They chalked the failure up to the disadvantages of a UI where the full extent of the functionality is hidden and difficult to understand, leading to bad experiences. I imagine this technology will have many of the same struggles.
[0] http://www.acquired.fm/episodes/2015/12/14/episode-5-siri
[1] http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/30/why-is-apple-hiring-nuance-eng...
Re: Siri's creators say they've made something better
#8Didn't Microsoft present the technology for the exact same thing (even used the same pizza-ordering example) during their Build conference this year?
Re: Siri's creators say they've made something better
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if the pizza cost half as much now because it didn't require a human to standby and take the order?
The real savings would come if you have a pizza bot that made pizzas without much human intervention and a drone picked it up and dropped it off and flew back to base.
Automated pizza making machines already exist[1] (skip to near end of video to see it in action). Proof of concept: Simply take the end product and pick it up with a multi-rotor and have it autonomously deliver it to the next room.
I've definitely eaten some frozen pizza that were as good as or better than the $5 pizza's from Dominos, I'm in Australia, YMMV.
I imagine if this was more profitable than the existing technology - humans placing toppings and delivering them - it would already be done.
Re: Siri's creators say they've made something better
#10The example of the pizza ordering is technologically impressive, yes... But from an end-user perspective it is at best "as hard" as calling the pizza place and talking to a human taking your order. There are many use cases where it could actually provide value, but I found it funny that they chose to demonstrate one to the press that really afforded end-users no advantage.
That's like saying it's just as easy to call a taxi company than use Uber. (It's about the ux).