Siri is the Next Big Thing
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Siri is the Next Big Thing
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Re: Siri is the Next Big Thing
#2[deleted]
Re: Siri is the Next Big Thing
#3It's interesting that the Printing Press didn't make the list of previous revolutions, because I think this highlights two different ways of thinking about intelligence (and thus AI). We can either build AI systems that give us a correct answer 95% of the time and we don't care how they got it, or we can build systems that have some sort of designed thinking (ie we understand our own thoughts and try and replicate their process to some degree).
I think at some point the former became dominant, because its more achieveable, but its also the one that gets most interesting when it fails. Because of the way this AI learns, when its wrong it can be brutally wrong.
I think there will be a revolution in AI getting into more spaces, but only in areas where its ok to screw up (ie ultimately a human is filtering the AI response at some degree, whether its the user knowing when to ignore the GPS or Siri, or an overseer looking over the AI output and checking it before it goes out). I'd be really surprised to see AI doing anything important by itself.
Also, I thought Google already had a fairly solid AI research effort well underway.
Re: Siri is the Next Big Thing
#4Is the AI winter really over?
Or is Siri simply the practical application of machine learning and NLP which we've manage to derive from off-shoots of AI research?
I think it will be some time yet when I can make a natural language query and have an AI agent fetch relevant data, sort it, and present it contextually. Or sketch an idea for a building and have an AI do all the hard work of creating the blueprints.
In the near future though it's obvious that we'll see more practical applications of AI in every-day products and I think that's pretty neat.
Re: Siri is the Next Big Thing
#5"This is not some futuristic bullshit. It is not intellectual masturbation." I wouldn't be so sure. I think that this kind of hype is exactly what serious AI research does NOT need.
Re: Siri is the Next Big Thing
#6Is Siri really more than a little bit of sugarcoating on top of stuff others have been doing for years (Google, Wolfram Alpha)? I suspect it is doing ok for some tasks (calendar), but that is about it. For example on Android people have been calling contacts by saying their names for a quite a while already.
Re: Siri is the Next Big Thing
#7Onion's supplement for HN? ^_^
Re: Siri is the Next Big Thing
#8It's interesting that the Printing Press didn't make the list of previous revolutions, because I think this highlights two different ways of thinking about intelligence (and thus AI). We can either build AI systems that give us a correct answer 95% of the time and we don't care how they got it, or we can build systems that have some sort of designed thinking (ie we understand our own thoughts and try and replicate th…
Hi, Author here. I think you make an excellent point. I think the revolution will start from small things where it is OK to make an error. Stuff like Siri does. Then it will move on to productivity tools or the like...where it is still OK to make a mistake. And A.I. will improve really fast, like the PC has improved. I think in 5-10 years we won't believe what we have accomplished. I think Siri crosses an important threshold.
Didn't know about Google. They might be working on something but I don't know of any production use of their A.I. software.
Re: Siri is the Next Big Thing
#9What a blindingly ignorant rant. A couple breathless prognostications that really annoyed me:
"If A.I. knows about insurance, will you ever google for it?" Uh, all the "A.I." is doing is googling it. So basically Siri will use speech-to-text (which I've had on my Android phone for years) and put it in the google search box for me. Then it will read the first result. Zippity-doo-da.
"We will teach it how to use Excel." Can you possibly imagine trying to tell a speech recognition system to input into a spreadsheet? Quite a step backwards, if you ask me.
Look, the interpretation of language into meaning and then into commands has been around for a while, and it's been constantly improving. Siri is another product in that crowded market. It's really swell that they included it in iOS; like I said, I've had it on my Droid for two-plus years and it's pretty handy. This is the worst kind of blind Apple fanboy-ism. They are a good company that makes some great products. Stop it with the hyperbole simply because you want to justify your new phone purchase to your wife before you're off-contract.
Re: Siri is the Next Big Thing
#10Can anyone point me to write ups of Siri's implementation and history? I know Siri was previously a product on the iPhone, so I'm wondering what company created the the technology, and if they perhaps had a more open attitude in discussing their technology than we might hear from Apple and whether they might have some blog posts to look through, etc.