6 ms·

> I can set my own alarms, thank you. And not only that, but a specialized user interface is often preferable to voice even when the assistant passes the Turin

> I can set my own alarms, thank you. And not only that, but a specialized user interface is often preferable to voice even when the assistant passes the Turing test. There's a reason that people use apps to get food delivery rather than calling.

dreamer7 6y ago
That doesn't seem correct. People prefer apps because they are better at providing the information we need (menus, products, services etc) and the alternative for engaging through calls is either talking with overworked humans or a painful IVR service. For me, the ideal interface to engage (order something, create a note etc) when you know what you want is through speech. It just feels so effortless.
- dheera 6y ago
  I can definitely say that for food I MUCH prefer the web/app interface. I can swipe through a bunch of nice-looking food and just tap on something that looks appetizing. You can't get that with voice no matter how you do it. It's like if a restaurant had no menu and the wait staff just recited the menu in your face and asked you to pick. Even with real humans, voice isn't the best interface for presenting food choices.
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    > if a restaurant had no menu and the wait staff just recited the menu That's exactly how food is presented to you at lots of high-end restaurants. Once you get above the fast-casual tier, menus never have pictures. If you know a lot about food and you trust the chef, voice is a perfect medium for explaining the choices. Pictures are just a discovery aid.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - dreamer7 6y ago
    That's exactly what I meant. The app interface is good for conveying information. But if you know what you'll order, eg - popcorn every weekend, just saying "Jarvis, order my usual popcorn combo" is so much more seamless.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> There's a reason that people use apps to get food delivery rather than calling. Well, if I had some type of personal assistant who worked for me (as in, a real human), I would just call out "Hey, Sam, please order pizza for me" and continue with whatever I was doing. The reason people don't make phone calls is they add a lot of additional friction. You have to dial the number, and wait for someone to pick up, and give them your address, and deal with frequently-questionable voice quality.
- dheera 6y ago
  I don't know, I like swiping through photos of food to make my decisions on what to eat, and then it only takes about 30 more seconds to complete the order at most.
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    This is just the optimal halting problem; sometimes you want to spend time finding the exact thing you want, and sometimes you just want something that's good enough. Both problems don't need the same solution.
- kibwen 6y ago
  Pizza is a weird example because pizza joint menus are more-or-less standard and unsurprising. For any non-pizza restaurant I'll want to start by scanning a menu, which is way more efficient than listening to a menu be read to me.
  - wtetzner 6y ago
    And if you're already scanning the menu, just clicking on the stuff you want is easier than explaining it to someone. However, if you frequently order the same thing from a given restaurant, having a way to order "the usual" from that place via voice might be convenient. But I'm not sure it's much more convenient than being able to do the same thing with a button click or something.
- ufmace 6y ago
heleninboodler 6y ago
It's funny, but for years I've felt like "Hey Siri, set an alarm for 7am" was 1000x easier than using the clunky Clock UI and it's almost exclusively what I use Siri for. Tasks that are so perfectly well-defined are exactly what this "smart" tech is useful for. Except that recently, Siri screwed me. I said "hey Siri, set an alarm for 6:30am" and her response was "Ok, your 6:30am alarm is on," but what she actually meant was "Ok, I ensured that your standing alarm for every tuesday at 6:30am is on" which meant she wasn't enabling the alarm for 6:30am tomorrow, so I overslept. Very annoying and completely blew my trust in a very useful function.
- tsm 6y ago
  On the google side, "wake me up at 7" results in a 7AM alarm 95% of the time and a 7 PM alarm the other 5%. Just frequent enough to screw you over…
- drunkpotato 6y ago
  Alarms and reminders are my most frequent uses of Siri (and to entertain/frustrate the kids...). It's also pretty good for hands-free quick texts while driving and hands-free calling, though I don't do those often. Your alarm example is frustrating. Of course, you could say "set alarm for tomorrow at 6:30 am" which would work, but then you're back in the realm not of natural language commands, but formal commands that exist in the uncanny valley, just similar enough to natural language to be irritating when they fail.
  - heleninboodler 6y ago
    Yeah, I would think it would be obvious to most humans that "set an alarm for 6:30am" never means "6:30am four days from now." It seems like it should just be interpreted as the next occurring 6:30am unless otherwise specified, but hey, I'm not a computer. Edit: also, your "tomorrow at 6:30am" example is also open to interpretation if you're saying it two minutes after midnight. I'd really like it to recognize these sort of ambiguities and prompt me for clarification. "It's after midnight. By 'tomorrow at 6:30am', do you mean you want your alarm to go off about 6 hours from now or the next day?"
airstrike 6y ago
The only two questions I ever ask Siri are "how cold is it outside?" and "wake me up {at HHam, in X minutes}"
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  I'm curious that you want to know the temperature specifically, rather than the weather. I'm guessing that's for reasons other than clothing choice?
  - airstrike 6y ago
    I just feel like I get a more actionable answer than the "It's a bit chilly and overcast" I get when I ask about the weather – how do I know if Siri and I agree on what's chilly or not?
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      Cool, pretty sure for weather Alexa says something like "in $place today it's 10 degree with a light breeze and 40% chance of rain; with a high of 13 and a low of 8; have a good $day".
oftenwrong 6y ago
I still often use a phone call (or sms) for takeaway. It's faster than using an app or website if you already know what you want, and usually cheaper, since there is no middle-man. For delivery, I agree. It is easier and faster to use a service, since my address and payment information are already saved.

dreamer7 6y ago

That doesn't seem correct. People prefer apps because they are better at providing the information we need (menus, products, services etc) and the alternative for engaging through calls is either talking with overworked humans or a painful IVR service. For me, the ideal interface to engage (order something, create a note etc) when you know what you want is through speech. It just feels so effortless.

dheera 6y ago
I can definitely say that for food I MUCH prefer the web/app interface. I can swipe through a bunch of nice-looking food and just tap on something that looks appetizing. You can't get that with voice no matter how you do it. It's like if a restaurant had no menu and the wait staff just recited the menu in your face and asked you to pick. Even with real humans, voice isn't the best interface for presenting food choices.
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  > if a restaurant had no menu and the wait staff just recited the menu That's exactly how food is presented to you at lots of high-end restaurants. Once you get above the fast-casual tier, menus never have pictures. If you know a lot about food and you trust the chef, voice is a perfect medium for explaining the choices. Pictures are just a discovery aid.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dreamer7 6y ago
  That's exactly what I meant. The app interface is good for conveying information. But if you know what you'll order, eg - popcorn every weekend, just saying "Jarvis, order my usual popcorn combo" is so much more seamless.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

> There's a reason that people use apps to get food delivery rather than calling. Well, if I had some type of personal assistant who worked for me (as in, a real human), I would just call out "Hey, Sam, please order pizza for me" and continue with whatever I was doing. The reason people don't make phone calls is they add a lot of additional friction. You have to dial the number, and wait for someone to pick up, and give them your address, and deal with frequently-questionable voice quality.

dheera 6y ago
I don't know, I like swiping through photos of food to make my decisions on what to eat, and then it only takes about 30 more seconds to complete the order at most.
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  This is just the optimal halting problem; sometimes you want to spend time finding the exact thing you want, and sometimes you just want something that's good enough. Both problems don't need the same solution.
kibwen 6y ago
Pizza is a weird example because pizza joint menus are more-or-less standard and unsurprising. For any non-pizza restaurant I'll want to start by scanning a menu, which is way more efficient than listening to a menu be read to me.
- wtetzner 6y ago
  And if you're already scanning the menu, just clicking on the stuff you want is easier than explaining it to someone. However, if you frequently order the same thing from a given restaurant, having a way to order "the usual" from that place via voice might be convenient. But I'm not sure it's much more convenient than being able to do the same thing with a button click or something.
ufmace 6y ago

heleninboodler 6y ago

It's funny, but for years I've felt like "Hey Siri, set an alarm for 7am" was 1000x easier than using the clunky Clock UI and it's almost exclusively what I use Siri for. Tasks that are so perfectly well-defined are exactly what this "smart" tech is useful for. Except that recently, Siri screwed me. I said "hey Siri, set an alarm for 6:30am" and her response was "Ok, your 6:30am alarm is on," but what she actually meant was "Ok, I ensured that your standing alarm for every tuesday at 6:30am is on" which meant she wasn't enabling the alarm for 6:30am tomorrow, so I overslept. Very annoying and completely blew my trust in a very useful function.

tsm 6y ago
On the google side, "wake me up at 7" results in a 7AM alarm 95% of the time and a 7 PM alarm the other 5%. Just frequent enough to screw you over…
drunkpotato 6y ago
Alarms and reminders are my most frequent uses of Siri (and to entertain/frustrate the kids...). It's also pretty good for hands-free quick texts while driving and hands-free calling, though I don't do those often. Your alarm example is frustrating. Of course, you could say "set alarm for tomorrow at 6:30 am" which would work, but then you're back in the realm not of natural language commands, but formal commands that exist in the uncanny valley, just similar enough to natural language to be irritating when they fail.
- heleninboodler 6y ago
  Yeah, I would think it would be obvious to most humans that "set an alarm for 6:30am" never means "6:30am four days from now." It seems like it should just be interpreted as the next occurring 6:30am unless otherwise specified, but hey, I'm not a computer. Edit: also, your "tomorrow at 6:30am" example is also open to interpretation if you're saying it two minutes after midnight. I'd really like it to recognize these sort of ambiguities and prompt me for clarification. "It's after midnight. By 'tomorrow at 6:30am', do you mean you want your alarm to go off about 6 hours from now or the next day?"

airstrike 6y ago

The only two questions I ever ask Siri are "how cold is it outside?" and "wake me up {at HHam, in X minutes}"

pbhjpbhj 6y ago
I'm curious that you want to know the temperature specifically, rather than the weather. I'm guessing that's for reasons other than clothing choice?
- airstrike 6y ago
  I just feel like I get a more actionable answer than the "It's a bit chilly and overcast" I get when I ask about the weather – how do I know if Siri and I agree on what's chilly or not?
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Cool, pretty sure for weather Alexa says something like "in $place today it's 10 degree with a light breeze and 40% chance of rain; with a high of 13 and a low of 8; have a good $day".

oftenwrong 6y ago

I still often use a phone call (or sms) for takeaway. It's faster than using an app or website if you already know what you want, and usually cheaper, since there is no middle-man. For delivery, I agree. It is easier and faster to use a service, since my address and payment information are already saved.