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Is Google twice as smart as Siri? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/google-ai-has-almost-twice-the-iq-of-siri-says-study.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/goo

Is Google twice as smart as Siri? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/google-ai-has-almost-twice-the-iq-of-siri-says-study.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/google-ai-has-almost-twice-t... I’m considering adding one of these to my family of iOS devices. Siri is cool when it works, but I’d like something a little better. That, and I won’t have to watch my watch, phone, and tablet competing to answer my questions. Finally, and most importantly, according to the article, Google appears to be improving the fastest.

arcanus 9y ago
I like the idea but I call foul at generalizing this result. > Google's artificial intelligence technology has a considerably higher I.Q. than Apple's Siri virtual assistant, This is device specific, and was done with phones, not home assistants. The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. This is also highly dependent on the quality of the microphone. Finally, I suspect both companies are re-training the 'nets often, so these results are in flux.
- neuronexmachina 9y ago
  > The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. Other than some minor sound processing, does any of the assistant behavior on either Google Home or phones actually happen locally?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    I have no idea about the home, but Google has been "pioneering" (I don't actually know if they are a first here) "federated machine learning". This lets them use a model trained on their systems, but improve it with real usage on the device without needing to send the data back to google. Essentially it's a private version of machine learning that doesn't need to send anything back to the server to still get most of the benefits. I know Google is using it for their "smart replies" and I think in their keyboard app already on phones, so there is a chance they could be applying it more widely to some responses locally on the Home devices.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      I'm curious when this starts to matter. I would guess most normal, non tech, people just don't ask much of these voice devices now. Mostly asking them for countdown timers, weather, playing a song, and maybe a few other things. Not because the devices can't do more, but because the customer isn't expecting them to.
      - Klathmon 9y ago
        Well even for the more "simple" things federated learning can improve the experience. Lower power usage, less latency, and in some cases improved privacy. And some kind of "smart" parsing of voice is still required. I don't like having to say things a specific way to get the machine to understand them, and as the "smart" stuff gets smarter, it gets easier to use even for simple tasks. Before I could ask "whats the weather" and get a generic answer, now I can ask "what's the weather tonight", "what time will it rain", "will it be really cold tomorrow morning", or even "what temperature is it in here" (asking specifically what temperature my indoor temperature is). There is a TON of work that goes into getting all of that to work, but it's not really a "feature" you can point to easily, even though it makes the product significantly better than alternatives. And being able to do all of that without needing the extra latency of a round trip to a google server would be an improvement.
- hammock 9y ago
  All requests are sent to the cloud for both services, there is no relevant local compute
Klathmon 9y ago
I love and use our 2 google homes on a daily basis, but they get significantly more useful if you are in google's ecosystem and have home automation. For me, i'd give a super rough guess at my usage like this: * 60% home automation (turning on and off lights when hands are full, ensuring doors are locked and garage door is closed, running "shortcuts" like "i'm leaving" which will lock up and arm the alarm in 5 minutes, etc...) * 15% playing and controlling music/tv shows on various devices in the house (tv's with chromecasts, the home itself, etc...) * 10% as a shopping list (it makes a damn good shopping list and it's nice as hell to be able to just yell at the thing to add "frosted mini wheats to the shopping list" the second you run out and have it synced to the whole family's phones) * 9% as a "day planner" of sorts. Generally each morning I tell it "good morning" and it tells me the weather, things on my calendar, and starts playing some news snippets I setup. * 5% for timers/alarms (really useful while cooking to be able to shout at it to start a timer for 15 minutes then walk away) * 1% for the dumb trivia lookups/random information. Stuff like "how many calories in X?" or "when was the Apple II released?"
- r00fus 9y ago
  Sorry to be the luddite, but these devices just seem like first-world-only interest to me. I have no desire to automate my house (I can see why others do). I don't have a home alarm. I have one TV in the house for several kids. The day planner/shopping list is good, but I pull out my phone instead and speak to it (when I press home button). Finally, is everyone really comfortable having always-on listening in their home? The convenience/creepy ratio just doesn't seem prudent for me. It's amusing to see how privacy oriented HN is yet these devices are so popular here - they're an unaudited vector into your most private moments.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Sorry to be the luddite, but these devices just seem like first-world-only interest to me. Probably mostly, but so what? The first world is over a billion people.
  - Eridrus 9y ago
    > It's amusing to see how privacy oriented HN is yet these devices are so popular here - they're an unaudited vector into your most private moments. HN is an echo chamber where it's not even worth talking about trade-offs when it comes to privacy, all I ever get from it is downvotes.

arcanus 9y ago

I like the idea but I call foul at generalizing this result. > Google's artificial intelligence technology has a considerably higher I.Q. than Apple's Siri virtual assistant, This is device specific, and was done with phones, not home assistants. The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. This is also highly dependent on the quality of the microphone. Finally, I suspect both companies are re-training the 'nets often, so these results are in flux.

neuronexmachina 9y ago
> The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. Other than some minor sound processing, does any of the assistant behavior on either Google Home or phones actually happen locally?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Klathmon 9y ago
  I have no idea about the home, but Google has been "pioneering" (I don't actually know if they are a first here) "federated machine learning". This lets them use a model trained on their systems, but improve it with real usage on the device without needing to send the data back to google. Essentially it's a private version of machine learning that doesn't need to send anything back to the server to still get most of the benefits. I know Google is using it for their "smart replies" and I think in their keyboard app already on phones, so there is a chance they could be applying it more widely to some responses locally on the Home devices.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    I'm curious when this starts to matter. I would guess most normal, non tech, people just don't ask much of these voice devices now. Mostly asking them for countdown timers, weather, playing a song, and maybe a few other things. Not because the devices can't do more, but because the customer isn't expecting them to.
    - Klathmon 9y ago
      Well even for the more "simple" things federated learning can improve the experience. Lower power usage, less latency, and in some cases improved privacy. And some kind of "smart" parsing of voice is still required. I don't like having to say things a specific way to get the machine to understand them, and as the "smart" stuff gets smarter, it gets easier to use even for simple tasks. Before I could ask "whats the weather" and get a generic answer, now I can ask "what's the weather tonight", "what time will it rain", "will it be really cold tomorrow morning", or even "what temperature is it in here" (asking specifically what temperature my indoor temperature is). There is a TON of work that goes into getting all of that to work, but it's not really a "feature" you can point to easily, even though it makes the product significantly better than alternatives. And being able to do all of that without needing the extra latency of a round trip to a google server would be an improvement.
hammock 9y ago
All requests are sent to the cloud for both services, there is no relevant local compute

Klathmon 9y ago

I love and use our 2 google homes on a daily basis, but they get significantly more useful if you are in google's ecosystem and have home automation. For me, i'd give a super rough guess at my usage like this: * 60% home automation (turning on and off lights when hands are full, ensuring doors are locked and garage door is closed, running "shortcuts" like "i'm leaving" which will lock up and arm the alarm in 5 minutes, etc...) * 15% playing and controlling music/tv shows on various devices in the house (tv's with chromecasts, the home itself, etc...) * 10% as a shopping list (it makes a damn good shopping list and it's nice as hell to be able to just yell at the thing to add "frosted mini wheats to the shopping list" the second you run out and have it synced to the whole family's phones) * 9% as a "day planner" of sorts. Generally each morning I tell it "good morning" and it tells me the weather, things on my calendar, and starts playing some news snippets I setup. * 5% for timers/alarms (really useful while cooking to be able to shout at it to start a timer for 15 minutes then walk away) * 1% for the dumb trivia lookups/random information. Stuff like "how many calories in X?" or "when was the Apple II released?"

r00fus 9y ago
Sorry to be the luddite, but these devices just seem like first-world-only interest to me. I have no desire to automate my house (I can see why others do). I don't have a home alarm. I have one TV in the house for several kids. The day planner/shopping list is good, but I pull out my phone instead and speak to it (when I press home button). Finally, is everyone really comfortable having always-on listening in their home? The convenience/creepy ratio just doesn't seem prudent for me. It's amusing to see how privacy oriented HN is yet these devices are so popular here - they're an unaudited vector into your most private moments.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Sorry to be the luddite, but these devices just seem like first-world-only interest to me. Probably mostly, but so what? The first world is over a billion people.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  > It's amusing to see how privacy oriented HN is yet these devices are so popular here - they're an unaudited vector into your most private moments. HN is an echo chamber where it's not even worth talking about trade-offs when it comes to privacy, all I ever get from it is downvotes.