3 ms·

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

by 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.

by jsz0 15y ago

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.