Mossberg: Why does Siri seem so dumb?

["David Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Hendricks Dewayne <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Mossberg: Why does Siri seem so dumb?
Date: October 12, 2016 at 11:36:11 AM EDT
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com

Mossberg: Why does Siri seem so dumb?
And if doesn’t get smarter soon, what does it mean for Apple?
By Walt Mossberg
Oct 12 2016
<http://www.recode.net/2016/10/12/13251618/mossberg-apple-siri-digital-assistant-dumb>

I’ve been familiar with Siri longer than most people. Way back in 2009 — two years before Apple incorporated the 
intelligent digital assistant into the iPhone — I stood onstage with the inventors of the service while they debuted it 
at a tech conference I co-produced. At the time, it was just a third-party app on the iPhone App Store. Not long 
thereafter, Apple bought the company, and the assistant reemerged in 2011 with a splashy introduction as a core feature 
of the iPhone 4s.

In addition to the iPhone, Siri is now on the iPad and was recently added to the Mac. It’s also on Apple TV. Via the 
phone, it’s the key user interface in Apple’s CarPlayinfotainment system for autos, and even the soon-to-be-released 
wireless AirPodearbuds. 

When was the last time Siri delighted you with a satisfying and surprising answer or action?
Siri is also the point of the spear for Apple in the coming tech war — it’s just getting started, to make artificial 
intelligence a natural, conversational, part of your world at home, on your phone, in your car, everywhere. And Apple 
had a big head start with Siri.

So why does Siri seem so dumb? Why are its talents so limited? Why does it stumble so often? When was the last time 
Siri delighted you with a satisfying and surprising answer or action?

For me, at least, and for many people I know, it’s been years. Siri’s huge promise has been shrunk to just making voice 
calls and sending messages to contacts, and maybe getting the weather, using voice commands. Some users find it a 
reliable way to set timers, alarms, notes and reminders, or to find restaurants. But many of these tasks could be done 
with the crude, pre-Siri voice-command features on the iPhone and other phones, albeit in a more clumsy way.

A blown advantage

It seems to me that Apple has wasted its lead with Siri. And now Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and others are on 
the march. Apple has made excited announcements each time it added knowledge domains like sports and movies and 
restaurants to Siri on the iPhone. But it seems like it hasn’t added any major new topic domains in quite a while. 

The only new domain listed on Apple’s Siri web page is for controlling home devices compatible with Apple’s HomeKit 
platform, a use case that’s quite small. You can now use Siri to “turn the lights blue” or “turn on the bathroom 
heater” — integrations that Amazon’s Echo and Alexa assistant have led the way on. And the always-listening Echo is 
faster than pressing the iPhone’s home button to call up Siri, and more reliable than the “Hey Siri” command, which can 
be hit-or-miss.

When’s the presidential debate? Siri had no clue.

If you try and treat Siri like a truly intelligent assistant, aware of the wider world, it often fails, even though 
Apple presentations and its Siri website suggest otherwise. (And I’m not talking about getting your voice wrong. In my 
recent experience, Siri has become quite good at transcribing what I’m asking, just not at answering it.)

[snip]

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