Siri (may be NSFW) fascinates me. It amazes me how fast she has become a meme, a character and a tool. Sites are popping up (such as STSS), to highlight the personality given to this computer program. In addition, across the web, people are refering to it as ‘her’ and contextually talking about it as if it were a person.
One month ago, I was more than happy with my Windows Phone using TellMe to hear and respond to text messages. I was a little jealous of the widespread use voice recognition had in Android, but I was still content. With the coming of Siri, I’ve gone from happy and content, to envious, and intrigued by the direction this could take the tech and mobile industries.
What amazes me the most about Siri, is that, at its heart, it is just an evolution of Eliza, Clippy, and any number of IM bots. It sources its answers from places like Wolfram Alpha and Yelp, and obviously has some pre-programmed answers for various input categories that can’t be answered (“I love you”, “Open the pod bay doors”, etc). However, in typical Apple fashion, the polish really sets it apart. While it could have been programed to just reject non-sensical inputs, instead, it was programmed with sass and character that give it an almost human, almost AI feel.
While, in a technical sense, Siri isn’t an AI (or is she), she is part of a trend of early adopter phase of the consumerization of advanced computing. This trend includes products liks Siri, Roomba, Watson and the recent EC2 based super computer. These technologies are either in mainstream, or they are coming in on the early adopter curve, soon to be in mainstream.
What does this all mean? Who knows! One can assume that Android, Microsoft, and companies like Nuance won’t just let this happen and roll over (although I’ve read rumors that Nuance is associated with Siri). In addition, I believe that within a few years, once Siri is no longer considered “beta”, we’ll see Apple introduce it to the desktop, and open it up to 3rd party developers.
While 3rd party developers may not have the skills to handle the full range of natural language processing Siri is capable of, even allowing developers to offer up their app as the “todo” application (like Remember the Milk) or the “note” application (like Evernote) would be a be an awesome start. Finally, I think that these apps may start to add voice recognition (that term seems so…. wrong… for Siri) on their own in unprecedented, and unforeseable directions. Exciting times are ahead!