“When Apple introduced Siri, the talking, voice-activated ‘personal assistant’ that will come with its new iPhone 4S, the Web leaped to the obvious, rational conclusion: That it’s a sinister, potentially alien artificial intelligence that’s bound to kill us all,” Doug Gross reports for CNN.
“‘If you’re wondering, ‘Siri’ can be pronounced two ways: ‘Skynet’ and ‘GLaDOS,’ wrote Twitter user @AshleyEsqueda,” Gross reports. “That’s a reference to 1) the computer system in the ‘Terminator’ stories that gains self-awareness and unleashes killer robots on mankind and 2) the talking, sinister artificial-intelligence system that puts players through their increasingly life-threatening paces in the “Portal” video game series.”
“‘Siri may be the beginning of Skynet,’ wrote Twitter user @KingJamesVrsn. ‘I swear, if my iPhone asks me if I am Sarah Connor…,'” Gross reports. “Of course, some folks go for a more classic approach to menacing, monotone. Enter HAL 9000, the digital antagonist in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’ This being 2011 and all, HAL has his own Twitter feed and, of course, was quick to chime in. ‘I think I went to school with Siri,’ @HAL9000 posted. ‘Cute female computer but she talked too much.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
I liken it more to the voice interfaced computer from Star Trek TNG. Clever yes (as long as the data in question has a reference in it`s database), conscious…. no.
As if you needed any further confirmation that CNN is a network for morons…
Uh yeah. And Fox is better? Read the story before this one…
LAMO.!!!!
Lets see…
did Siri ask any questions
or
did Siri provide answers?
Sinister Siri – what a bunch of bs.
Of corse all verbalizations will to through the central net, they will know you better than yourself. Bwaahaaha
“I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that.”
That’s silly.
Any ideas on when this technology will be available on OS X devices or at least iPad 2?
I think an assistant enabled iPad or Mac would be great for the home.
The silly season is upon us.
Anyone who won’t be able to offer Siri (meaning everyone but Apple) will have an incentive to disparage it. Envy brings out the “uglies” everytime. These are just the first steps to verbally neuter Siri’s “mindshare” by calling it names that invoke negative imagery….Skynet, HAL, etc. Childish.
I’ll take two iPhone 4S’s please! Can’t wait to have a personal assistant in my pocket.
Actually I like HAL. And since it really wasn’t his fault he went insane, I see no reason for anyone to disparage the poor computer. People act just as stupidly, and dangerously, as did HAL, but at least HAL had a reason. 🙂
Officially, now, I want my Siri interface to have the voice of GLaDOS. And I am 100% serious. I think that would be the coolest hack ever. Better even than Yoda giving directions on a TomTom GPS.
Me: “Siri, Tell me where I can find some cake.”
GLaDOS: “You’re a bad person. It says so right here. We weren’t even testing for that.”
To add to your excellent suggestions, Apple should rename it the “iPhone over 9000!!!”, let you use the Konami Code to get past the lock screen, and preload it with a mediaeval themed fandub of Lost.
The voice actor who did the voice of GLaDOS is awesome. She could get a lot of money working with Apple on a Portal theme for Siri. I’d buy that shit in a heartbeat. Not sure I’d pay more then $10-$20 max though.
There’s likely a jailbreak for that.
By the way: anyone that has a problem with Siri or iPhone 4s, doesn’t have to buy it.
My mother would have said they should drop dead
Can someone explain how you pronounce the word ‘Siri’ as ‘Skynet’ and ‘GLaDOS’? Try as I might, I just can’t make it work. Damn, of course, they all three have two syllables. How could I be so stupid?
Siri? Apple, please rename it while still in beta.
Once you use Siri – you won’t care about the name.
Why don’t you like the name? I don’t really care one way or the other my self. I think Siri sounds just as good as any other name for an AI.
…anyone up for a little Zappa reference?
“This is the Central Scrutinizer..”
(Joe’s Garage)
As for the tin foil hat crowd, those that tweeted such dribble above and tech journalists, remember: you can lead a person to knowledge, but you can’t make them think.
A teacher can lead a student to water, but she can’t make him sink.
I don’t get it. Looking over the headlines of today’s “stories” on MDN
one would think they were misdirected to an Apple take down site.
Why regurgitate so many of the negative comments about the iPhone 4 you can find on any Apple-bashing site? MDN is becoming so “fair and balanced” that I’m wondering what their current agenda is.
I highly doubt that Siri is Artificial Intelligence. It probably consits of complex software commands and code and foreseeable actions on the user.
Siri is a spin-out from SRI International’s Artificial Intelligence Center, and is an offshoot of the DARPA-funded CALO project, described as perhaps the largest artificial-intelligence project ever launched.
It is artificial Intelligence technically. We’ve had artificial intelligence for some time now. What you may be thinking of is self aware AI. That sort of AI has not been achieved and I doubt it will ever happen, at least not the way we think of it.
Not only is Apple not letting me have the new integrated Siri on the iPhone 4 I bought just 2 weeks ago, but they are also going to take away my Siri app that I have had for a year. I call bullshit Apple. I wonder how many others are pissed…
I agree. Good point – that would piss me off also.
Can I ask, how did it work for you. Siri on iPhone4.
iPhone4s should have appeared at the same time the iPad2 came out. I think this was Apples mistake. The competition already had dual-core and voice (vlingo).
If you’ve only had it for 2 weeks, you should be able to return it. They have a 30 day return policy.
All this hoopla over Siri ignores one basic human tendency; most of us despise actually having appliances talk to us. Having appliances respond to commands is one thing, but talking back is generally not welcome, except as part of showing it off in front of friends. We slowly begin to view it as competition for our attention, an intrusion.
Siri is not AI, just speech recognition. Apple needed some nerdy software to make the claim the 4GS appear to be something new. It’s not. It’s the age-old geeky utopian crap that was pimped way back in 1984 and it will be wholly forgotten by the time the iPhone5 hits the shelves.
You are incorrect.
There is a reason all attempts so far to develop speech recognition have been unpopular. While they all work remarkably well, even for people with foreign accents, it is the usability that pretty much kills them.
A phone is a device into which user most often talks. While most of that talk is to another human, nonetheless, it is expected that when you see a person with phone in his hand, he will be talking. So, doing voice commands to ones phone cannot feel as awkward as talking to a desktop computer (and this seems to be the main argument against voice recognition in general).
More importantly, Apple’s implementation of SIRI is incredibly intuitive and simple to use. With a 3-minute demo, user is ready to use it without any further training. This is nothing like Android’s voice recognition, which is clunky, unintuitive and most certainly NOT intelligent.
I am thoroughly convinced that SIRI will be the most talked-about feature, once people start seeing the new commercials, and one of the most commonly used features on iPhone 4S.
Siri is by definition AI. It makes decisions based on the meaning of what you say. It doesn’t just recognize commands like speech recognition. It recognizes what you mean.
Also, AI is a much broader term them most realize.
Am I the only one that remembers Continuity, the AI from William Gibson’s third book in the Neuromancer trilogy, Mona Lisa Overdrive?
iPhone 4S(teve). I am getting a iPhone 4S for the memory of Steve P. Jobs (RIP). I will keep it for the rest of my life. For a memory of the man and because the inside of the phone is the best it could be, at this time in phone history. I am confident of it because he helped produce it.
I walk by Steve at a Macworld convention several years ago in San Francisco, I was so proud to own Apple Products. I am a fan boy and have helped 100s if not thousands of people come to love the company and it’s products over the last 30 years. But most of all the company’s philosophy. The way Steve made us think and consider the possibilities in our own lives. That we should do better, be better. No, be the best we can be at any given time in our life!
I was in the military and lived in the Azores, Portugal. I requested leave so that I could come back to the USA to purchase the first Macintosh computer. I loved the smiling Mac face that greeted you at start up and the chime of course. I said, “Man this computer is going to change the world.”
I knew then in time it would be the best and biggest company on earth. When Steve was fired from Apple a dark period set in. I supported Apple then. And when he came back I was so excited. Like a young boy in candy shop with my new iMac. Bondi Blue iMac. At Steven’s death my father sent me a message on our iPhone(s). He said, ” Ever so often God produces an individual so visionary so great that they transcend being a human being. All I can say is, Amen.
This is more sinister than SkyNet or Siri…
http://goo.gl/814l1
Judge Judy is astonished at what her taxes are paying for!