I don't understand how this article rose to the top page of HN... it's not telling us anything that's interesting, new, or news in any way. Artificial intelligence has been around since the dawn of computers (think Clippy), helping us do our shit. In fact, AutoCAD is a bunch of 'artificial intelligence' that's letting you draw vectors and write code in a more intuitive way (ok, not exactly and technically, but you know what I mean)
It seems like the author of this article has never in their life seen a computer do anything more than push numbers, but machine learning and AI have been around for at least a decade. This is just a very mainstream case of very well developed AI.
Saying that 'this is the start of a revolution' is not only ill-advised, but totally baseless. What's the innovation? What has changed in what was previously possible? For a revolution to occur, there needs to be an innovation that causes expansion of technological capabilities. Although Siri is (supposedly) great, it does not represent an expansion of technological capability. Just because the team behind Siri spent years building out a great voice activated AI system does not mean that we all can now do it. Computers have not become smarter... they are the same as they ever were. People have not realized a more efficient way to create AI... it's the same as before.
I'm truly surprised that such a shallow and misguided article made it to the popular page in a community like this.
Hi Author here. Thank your for the harsh words. I guess I gotto take it to the chin.
Please allow me explain my point in another way. I think Siri is to A.I. what Apple II is to computers. Does this analogy explain what I am trying to tell better?
What a blindingly ignorant rant. A couple breathless prognostications that really annoyed me:
"If A.I. knows about insurance, will you ever google for it?"
Uh, all the "A.I." is doing is googling it. So basically Siri will use speech-to-text (which I've had on my Android phone for years) and put it in the google search box for me. Then it will read the first result. Zippity-doo-da.
"We will teach it how to use Excel."
Can you possibly imagine trying to tell a speech recognition system to input into a spreadsheet? Quite a step backwards, if you ask me.
Look, the interpretation of language into meaning and then into commands has been around for a while, and it's been constantly improving. Siri is another product in that crowded market. It's really swell that they included it in iOS; like I said, I've had it on my Droid for two-plus years and it's pretty handy. This is the worst kind of blind Apple fanboy-ism. They are a good company that makes some great products. Stop it with the hyperbole simply because you want to justify your new phone purchase to your wife before you're off-contract.
No, no and god no. Siri is not voice recognition. It is not even in the same universe as the voice control in Android.
And yes of course A.I. will use one or more search engines to look information up. But Google might not necessarily be one of them and consumers will not care two cents as long A.I. gets the job done. My point it that A.I. will fly over Google's moat unless it is Google's A.I.
I love how I'm being downvoted to oblivion when nobody is able to produce a single example of what Siri does that other products don't. That's my entire argument, that the technology already exists and is not some major revolution. I guess no place is impervious to Apple fanboyism, even HN.
Yaaa....I think this flew over your head. You are saying that, for example, Wolfram Alpha is like Google. They are completely different: One gives you links that you still have to go through to reach what you need and one gives you a direct answer. Even Woz said in his interview on TC...we don't need search engines, we need answer engines. To say Siri is a search engine with voice to text is a great mistake. Voice recognition is just the outer layer that makes the experience a human experience.
I don't take the words of the author as a prophecy but I see where he is going; and isn't that what science fiction authors kinda did 20-30 years ago? They dreamt; and I wish more people can dream of greater possibilities.
While I agree with you in principle, I feel like the conceptual use cases you're imagining implement current practices with basically a speech to text. What the author is suggesting is that it would be beyond this, skipping out the step where you determine how you do something, but instead telling Siri what you want to do. For example, with excel I'm not sure he envisaged something like "A5 is 20, A6 is 30" and so on, but more like, "Take my taxes from this pdf and put them into a spreadsheet".
That said, irrespective of any kind of AI revolution Siri may (or as I suspect) may not induce, I feel like predicting it's impact before we've even had the chance to test it out in any kind of capacity (OK the 4S has been on sale for two hours, but you know what I mean) is somewhat short sighted.
Or is Siri simply the practical application of machine learning and NLP which we've manage to derive from off-shoots of AI research?
I think it will be some time yet when I can make a natural language query and have an AI agent fetch relevant data, sort it, and present it contextually. Or sketch an idea for a building and have an AI do all the hard work of creating the blueprints.
In the near future though it's obvious that we'll see more practical applications of AI in every-day products and I think that's pretty neat.
>>> a natural language query and have an AI agent fetch relevant data, sort it, and present it contextually.
What about IBM's watson : you asks it a question: am i sick? it gathers symptoms from you , looks in the medical literature and concludes your possible illnesses and in what likelihood.
I think it can also refer you to the relevant literature.
>>> Or sketch an idea for a building and have an AI do all the hard work of creating the blueprints.
bluethink house designer[1] does that.You enter a very high level drawing , and it fills in all the details according to regulations, cost efficency and best practices.
It's interesting that the Printing Press didn't make the list of previous revolutions, because I think this highlights two different ways of thinking about intelligence (and thus AI). We can either build AI systems that give us a correct answer 95% of the time and we don't care how they got it, or we can build systems that have some sort of designed thinking (ie we understand our own thoughts and try and replicate their process to some degree).
I think at some point the former became dominant, because its more achieveable, but its also the one that gets most interesting when it fails. Because of the way this AI learns, when its wrong it can be brutally wrong.
I think there will be a revolution in AI getting into more spaces, but only in areas where its ok to screw up (ie ultimately a human is filtering the AI response at some degree, whether its the user knowing when to ignore the GPS or Siri, or an overseer looking over the AI output and checking it before it goes out). I'd be really surprised to see AI doing anything important by itself.
Also, I thought Google already had a fairly solid AI research effort well underway.
Hi, Author here. I think you make an excellent point. I think the revolution will start from small things where it is OK to make an error. Stuff like Siri does. Then it will move on to productivity tools or the like...where it is still OK to make a mistake. And A.I. will improve really fast, like the PC has improved. I think in 5-10 years we won't believe what we have accomplished. I think Siri crosses an important threshold.
Didn't know about Google. They might be working on something but I don't know of any production use of their A.I. software.
How do you judge a new medicine? do you ask if does the correct things 100% of the time? or do you just want it to be better than the other drugs ?
I think the same logic applies to other technologies: products generally have to pass the standard safety tests/level common in their industry, not be perfect.
Will this too happen in AI ? maybe , but maybe due to political pressure , the standards require from AI will be much higher.
No matter how innovative company Apple is, I wouldn't give them credit just because they bought Siri and integrated it into iOS. I somehow find it odd that no one was talking about Siri before Apple's blessing, although it has existed for many years. It has been constantly evolving, and would have without Apple. There's lots of information about Siri available and the vision and goal of the project has been clear all along.
Taking an impressive but not all that practical technology demo and integrating it into devices that are going to be in millions of people's hands deserves some credit. The major part of the credit goes to those who developed the technology, of course, but identifying the technology as practical for the masses and getting it out to them is important too.
Can anyone point me to write ups of Siri's implementation and history? I know Siri was previously a product on the iPhone, so I'm wondering what company created the the technology, and if they perhaps had a more open attitude in discussing their technology than we might hear from Apple and whether they might have some blog posts to look through, etc.
Is Siri really more than a little bit of sugarcoating on top of stuff others have been doing for years (Google, Wolfram Alpha)? I suspect it is doing ok for some tasks (calendar), but that is about it. For example on Android people have been calling contacts by saying their names for a quite a while already.
Android user here who frequently uses the voice commands. The primary differences I see between what we have and what Siri offers are:
- More built-in app integration (like GPS). "Remind me to call Jennifer when I leave work" wouldn't compute. The Wolfram Alpha integration is also a nice touch.
- Improved contextual awareness. "Is it going to rain today?" or "I'm in the mood for Italian" don't work for me. I have to explicitly use keywords like asking for a "map of italian restaurants".
- 2-way conversations. I only speak a command and the voice command opens another application based on that command. Siri can talk back to you and resolve conflicts, such as calendar schedule overlaps.
Have we had voice commands on our phones for what seems like forever now? Yep. But that doesn't make me any less jealous of the neat innovations that Apple's done in the speech recognition AI field. Again, a great example of the fierce competition driving innovation, and the consumer wins.
It is. What's impressive about Siri is not the speech recognition (although it's pretty good) but rather two new elements that I haven't seen done as well on another consumer device:
1. Interpreting the meaning of your request
2. Remembering and using context
Siri has been a standout in those areas since before the Apple acquisition. Most people are surprised at just how naturally you can talk to your phone. It's doing more complex work than just passing the request on to Wolfram Alpha.
However, Google has a lot of impressive work in this space, too. I don't think it's long before android phones are this good--they are practically there already.
It's classic Apple: they didn't invent it, but they look like they'll get credit for being the first to popularize it and bring it to the mass market.
Siri has been in development for quite some time. Prior to spinning out, it was a DARPA funded research project at SRI. Give the guys credit. They didn't just slap down a bunch of glue to tie together Google and voice recognition.
I've never been able to get squat out of Wolframe Alpha. Even on things that seem like it should be right up its alley ("compare health care costs in Texas to Wisconsin" -- "no data available" -- Oh really?)
The only way we're going to achieve AI in the short term is by loosening the definition of the phrase, for example to include a new generation of complex automatons. I look forward to AI meaning about as much as "cloud" does today.
[+] [-] jenius|14 years ago|reply
It seems like the author of this article has never in their life seen a computer do anything more than push numbers, but machine learning and AI have been around for at least a decade. This is just a very mainstream case of very well developed AI.
Saying that 'this is the start of a revolution' is not only ill-advised, but totally baseless. What's the innovation? What has changed in what was previously possible? For a revolution to occur, there needs to be an innovation that causes expansion of technological capabilities. Although Siri is (supposedly) great, it does not represent an expansion of technological capability. Just because the team behind Siri spent years building out a great voice activated AI system does not mean that we all can now do it. Computers have not become smarter... they are the same as they ever were. People have not realized a more efficient way to create AI... it's the same as before.
I'm truly surprised that such a shallow and misguided article made it to the popular page in a community like this.
[+] [-] yalimgerger|14 years ago|reply
Please allow me explain my point in another way. I think Siri is to A.I. what Apple II is to computers. Does this analogy explain what I am trying to tell better?
[+] [-] baggachipz|14 years ago|reply
"If A.I. knows about insurance, will you ever google for it?" Uh, all the "A.I." is doing is googling it. So basically Siri will use speech-to-text (which I've had on my Android phone for years) and put it in the google search box for me. Then it will read the first result. Zippity-doo-da.
"We will teach it how to use Excel." Can you possibly imagine trying to tell a speech recognition system to input into a spreadsheet? Quite a step backwards, if you ask me.
Look, the interpretation of language into meaning and then into commands has been around for a while, and it's been constantly improving. Siri is another product in that crowded market. It's really swell that they included it in iOS; like I said, I've had it on my Droid for two-plus years and it's pretty handy. This is the worst kind of blind Apple fanboy-ism. They are a good company that makes some great products. Stop it with the hyperbole simply because you want to justify your new phone purchase to your wife before you're off-contract.
[+] [-] yalimgerger|14 years ago|reply
And yes of course A.I. will use one or more search engines to look information up. But Google might not necessarily be one of them and consumers will not care two cents as long A.I. gets the job done. My point it that A.I. will fly over Google's moat unless it is Google's A.I.
[+] [-] baggachipz|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhashim|14 years ago|reply
I don't take the words of the author as a prophecy but I see where he is going; and isn't that what science fiction authors kinda did 20-30 years ago? They dreamt; and I wish more people can dream of greater possibilities.
[+] [-] alexholehouse|14 years ago|reply
That said, irrespective of any kind of AI revolution Siri may (or as I suspect) may not induce, I feel like predicting it's impact before we've even had the chance to test it out in any kind of capacity (OK the 4S has been on sale for two hours, but you know what I mean) is somewhat short sighted.
[+] [-] agentultra|14 years ago|reply
Or is Siri simply the practical application of machine learning and NLP which we've manage to derive from off-shoots of AI research?
I think it will be some time yet when I can make a natural language query and have an AI agent fetch relevant data, sort it, and present it contextually. Or sketch an idea for a building and have an AI do all the hard work of creating the blueprints.
In the near future though it's obvious that we'll see more practical applications of AI in every-day products and I think that's pretty neat.
[+] [-] ippisl|14 years ago|reply
What about IBM's watson : you asks it a question: am i sick? it gathers symptoms from you , looks in the medical literature and concludes your possible illnesses and in what likelihood.
I think it can also refer you to the relevant literature.
>>> Or sketch an idea for a building and have an AI do all the hard work of creating the blueprints.
bluethink house designer[1] does that.You enter a very high level drawing , and it fills in all the details according to regulations, cost efficency and best practices.
[1]http://www.aecbytes.com/buildingthefuture/2009/BluethinkHous...
[+] [-] yalimgerger|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zipdog|14 years ago|reply
I think at some point the former became dominant, because its more achieveable, but its also the one that gets most interesting when it fails. Because of the way this AI learns, when its wrong it can be brutally wrong.
I think there will be a revolution in AI getting into more spaces, but only in areas where its ok to screw up (ie ultimately a human is filtering the AI response at some degree, whether its the user knowing when to ignore the GPS or Siri, or an overseer looking over the AI output and checking it before it goes out). I'd be really surprised to see AI doing anything important by itself.
Also, I thought Google already had a fairly solid AI research effort well underway.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] yalimgerger|14 years ago|reply
Didn't know about Google. They might be working on something but I don't know of any production use of their A.I. software.
[+] [-] ippisl|14 years ago|reply
I think the same logic applies to other technologies: products generally have to pass the standard safety tests/level common in their industry, not be perfect.
Will this too happen in AI ? maybe , but maybe due to political pressure , the standards require from AI will be much higher.
[+] [-] Geee|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] incremental|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Geee|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tichy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pewpewarrows|14 years ago|reply
- More built-in app integration (like GPS). "Remind me to call Jennifer when I leave work" wouldn't compute. The Wolfram Alpha integration is also a nice touch.
- Improved contextual awareness. "Is it going to rain today?" or "I'm in the mood for Italian" don't work for me. I have to explicitly use keywords like asking for a "map of italian restaurants".
- 2-way conversations. I only speak a command and the voice command opens another application based on that command. Siri can talk back to you and resolve conflicts, such as calendar schedule overlaps.
Have we had voice commands on our phones for what seems like forever now? Yep. But that doesn't make me any less jealous of the neat innovations that Apple's done in the speech recognition AI field. Again, a great example of the fierce competition driving innovation, and the consumer wins.
[+] [-] toddmorey|14 years ago|reply
Siri has been a standout in those areas since before the Apple acquisition. Most people are surprised at just how naturally you can talk to your phone. It's doing more complex work than just passing the request on to Wolfram Alpha.
However, Google has a lot of impressive work in this space, too. I don't think it's long before android phones are this good--they are practically there already.
It's classic Apple: they didn't invent it, but they look like they'll get credit for being the first to popularize it and bring it to the mass market.
[+] [-] incremental|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lrm242|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] podperson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barryfandango|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] danmaz74|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] schiptsov|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]