5 ms·

I'm curious if anyone who's ex-Apple could briefly (without breaking any rules) describe why Siri is so bad compared to competitors.

scarface_74 2y ago
All of the intent based bots are bad. None of them use any form of “AI”. You give them all a list of phrases to match (utterances) with variable parts (slots) and map them to “intents”. You can build much better systems with LLMs now. I’ve built a few for call centers (Amazon Lex + Connect + Bedrock)
- nytesky 2y ago
  I was going to say similarly, what competitors are better. Alexa or Cortana or Hey Google? Google is maybe a little better but none are ChatGPT which is a different thing I thought the whole point of Apple Intelligence was to have ChatGPT as backend for Siri, but this does not seem that?
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Siri is suppose to be routing “world knowledge” to Siri. The LLM based Siri that can handle internal phone actions won’t be available until next year. This is an example I put together in response to annother submission on HN a few days ago. https://chatgpt.com/share/678bab08-f3a0-8010-82e0-32cff9c0b428 https://chatgpt.com/share/678bab08-f3a0-8010-82e0-32cff9c0b4... In the real world, you would give a prompt that could handle multiple intents and properties (slots) for the intent.
- amazingamazing 2y ago
  Siri is uniquely bad. If you have an iPhone, try asking it to pause and resume repeatedly. Sometimes it will say that it cannot do that (pause), but then the sound pauses anyway. Ditto with resuming.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    I just did it while playing music on my phone and video playing in the background. I initiated with “Hey Siri”. I’m running the latest version of iOS. But honestly, most of the time I either take an Airpod out of my ear, click on the AirPod stem, use my watch if I’m running to control volume, playback, or use the steering wheel controls on my car.
CamperBob2 2y ago
Any tool that empowers the user can be misused. Apple is so terrified that you'll misuse their technology that they spend most of their engineering effort preventing you from getting things done with it. Hence, Siri. Of course this is sustainable only as long as they have no competition. But even the post-Jobs Apple has a limited glide ratio. They will eventually find that the walls they've built are better at confining the company itself than at corraling its customers.
wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]

scarface_74 2y ago

All of the intent based bots are bad. None of them use any form of “AI”. You give them all a list of phrases to match (utterances) with variable parts (slots) and map them to “intents”. You can build much better systems with LLMs now. I’ve built a few for call centers (Amazon Lex + Connect + Bedrock)

nytesky 2y ago
I was going to say similarly, what competitors are better. Alexa or Cortana or Hey Google? Google is maybe a little better but none are ChatGPT which is a different thing I thought the whole point of Apple Intelligence was to have ChatGPT as backend for Siri, but this does not seem that?
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Siri is suppose to be routing “world knowledge” to Siri. The LLM based Siri that can handle internal phone actions won’t be available until next year. This is an example I put together in response to annother submission on HN a few days ago. https://chatgpt.com/share/678bab08-f3a0-8010-82e0-32cff9c0b428 https://chatgpt.com/share/678bab08-f3a0-8010-82e0-32cff9c0b4... In the real world, you would give a prompt that could handle multiple intents and properties (slots) for the intent.
amazingamazing 2y ago
Siri is uniquely bad. If you have an iPhone, try asking it to pause and resume repeatedly. Sometimes it will say that it cannot do that (pause), but then the sound pauses anyway. Ditto with resuming.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  I just did it while playing music on my phone and video playing in the background. I initiated with “Hey Siri”. I’m running the latest version of iOS. But honestly, most of the time I either take an Airpod out of my ear, click on the AirPod stem, use my watch if I’m running to control volume, playback, or use the steering wheel controls on my car.

CamperBob2 2y ago

Any tool that empowers the user can be misused. Apple is so terrified that you'll misuse their technology that they spend most of their engineering effort preventing you from getting things done with it. Hence, Siri. Of course this is sustainable only as long as they have no competition. But even the post-Jobs Apple has a limited glide ratio. They will eventually find that the walls they've built are better at confining the company itself than at corraling its customers.

wetpaws 2y ago

[dead]