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I think a phone could make a good assistant... but I am perturbed at these attempts to give a robot personality. Every screencap I've seen of Siri is people ask

I think a phone could make a good assistant... but I am perturbed at these attempts to give a robot personality. Every screencap I've seen of Siri is people asking it "What is the meaning of life" or "I love you". Perhaps it's just a novelty and people will actually start using it for its intended purpose but at this stage I really don't give a shit what a bunch of algorithms thinks about some philosophical question.

viscanti 15y ago
There's a couple reasons for the screencaps you're seeing. The first is that anything you talk to will be perceived as having a personality. It's either robotic and boring, or it does something else. The second, and more important reason, is that people don't take many screencaps of when Siri provides them relevant information for their particular situation. It's not easily captures, you miss context. With a silly thing like asking it the meaning of life, all the context is there, you can quickly see that it understood and responded accordingly. I guess I just don't see the outrage over how people are using Siri. I couldn't care less how other people are using it, or what they're choosing to get screencaps of.
jsz0 15y ago
Honestly I don't really give a shit about how the weather is outside or what my co-workers are doing over the weekend either but small talk is pretty important to communication with other human beings. The artificial personality responses of Siri serve the same purpose. It's a brilliant way to lure people into using Siri and break the ice of talking to your device. Also by giving it a proper name and natural language recognition it totally breaks the barriers down. You can have a one sided conversation with Siri and the people eavesdropping on you would not think twice about it.
- mladenkovacevic 15y ago
  I have no doubt that giving Siri personality is a great adoption strategy and makes it more pleasant to use. What I am perturbed by (and not outraged as the other commenter above you suggests) is the end-result of making technology "too approachable". I really don't want to sound like a Luddite because I think technology is often wonderful, but it seems with every new iteration of hardware/software we are moving further and further away from communicating with each other and instead having the machines do it for us. Here’s how I see that progression taking place: 1) Telephony enabled us to speak to each other without actually being in close proximity.... ok that’s pretty convenient I guess 2) E-mailing, texting & other forms of messaging allowed us to remotely communicate long-form, pre-composed thoughts without even using our voice ... ok I guess still good 3) Siri now does the typing and the sending, you just tell it what to do and it’ll act an intermediary between you and your friends…. Hmm I dunno if I like where this is going … 4) Future AI will “liberate” us from the stress of even thinking about when or what messages need to be sent but will do it for us based on how we programmed it to manage our life… hell, just kill me now
  - freemarketteddy 15y ago
    I think 4 is a bad interpolation!...Lets imagine that everyone had a highly intelligent MIT grad as an indentured slave who will do everything you say..Everyone will still choose to send their own messages.

viscanti 15y ago

There's a couple reasons for the screencaps you're seeing. The first is that anything you talk to will be perceived as having a personality. It's either robotic and boring, or it does something else. The second, and more important reason, is that people don't take many screencaps of when Siri provides them relevant information for their particular situation. It's not easily captures, you miss context. With a silly thing like asking it the meaning of life, all the context is there, you can quickly see that it understood and responded accordingly. I guess I just don't see the outrage over how people are using Siri. I couldn't care less how other people are using it, or what they're choosing to get screencaps of.

jsz0 15y ago

Honestly I don't really give a shit about how the weather is outside or what my co-workers are doing over the weekend either but small talk is pretty important to communication with other human beings. The artificial personality responses of Siri serve the same purpose. It's a brilliant way to lure people into using Siri and break the ice of talking to your device. Also by giving it a proper name and natural language recognition it totally breaks the barriers down. You can have a one sided conversation with Siri and the people eavesdropping on you would not think twice about it.

mladenkovacevic 15y ago
I have no doubt that giving Siri personality is a great adoption strategy and makes it more pleasant to use. What I am perturbed by (and not outraged as the other commenter above you suggests) is the end-result of making technology "too approachable". I really don't want to sound like a Luddite because I think technology is often wonderful, but it seems with every new iteration of hardware/software we are moving further and further away from communicating with each other and instead having the machines do it for us. Here’s how I see that progression taking place: 1) Telephony enabled us to speak to each other without actually being in close proximity.... ok that’s pretty convenient I guess 2) E-mailing, texting & other forms of messaging allowed us to remotely communicate long-form, pre-composed thoughts without even using our voice ... ok I guess still good 3) Siri now does the typing and the sending, you just tell it what to do and it’ll act an intermediary between you and your friends…. Hmm I dunno if I like where this is going … 4) Future AI will “liberate” us from the stress of even thinking about when or what messages need to be sent but will do it for us based on how we programmed it to manage our life… hell, just kill me now
- freemarketteddy 15y ago
  I think 4 is a bad interpolation!...Lets imagine that everyone had a highly intelligent MIT grad as an indentured slave who will do everything you say..Everyone will still choose to send their own messages.