Meet Siri's Little Brother, Trapit 183
waderoush writes "Virtually overnight, Siri, the personal assistant technology in Apple's new iPhone 4S, has brought state-of-the-art AI to the consumer mainstream. Well, it turns out there's more where that came from. Trapit, a second spinoff of SRI International's groundbreaking CALO project (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes), is preparing for a public beta launch this fall. The Web-based news aggregator lets users set up persistent 'traps' or filters on specific topics. Over time, the traps learn to include more articles that match users' interests and exclude those that don't. Philosophically, it's the exact opposite of social-curation news apps like Flipboard or Pulse, since it uses adaptive learning and sense-making technologies to learn what users like, not what their friends like. 'Just as Siri is revolutionizing the human-computer interaction on the mobile device, Trapit will revolutionize Web search as we know it today,' the company asserts."
Important (Score:5, Interesting)
While a program that fetches more things you are interested in is great, you should realize the consequences of such a program. In particular you should realize the concept of a filter bubble. Namely that by only picking out things you are already interested in, you exclude things that you could be interested in or things that are too important to exclude.
There's been a TED talk about this, I suggest you watch it so that you can take active steps (when needed) to step out of your comfort zone now and then:
http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk [thefilterbubble.com]
State of the art AI? (Score:0, Interesting)
" has brought state-of-the-art AI to the consumer mainstream"
Do people really believe this?
Re:Fairly Dangerous (Score:3, Interesting)
I couldn't agree more!
The more this stuff would learn about you, the less you 'd have chances to learn new stuff that could interest you, to open your mind to other opinions and other ideas. It's kind of positive closed-loop that'll lock your mind and prevent you to evolve (well, fortunately the rest of the world will continue to interact with you by other means).
I'd never permit a real person, even my mother who knows me well, to select what I should be interested in, so an archaic AI program, a bonehead maker? never!...
Evolution needs stimulation, not confortation.
Siri, Android and State of the Art (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple's Siri is not necessarily 'State of the Art', but like just about everything Apple does... It just works. Siri is causing a splash because ... unlike Android. It works properly. I don't use voice on my Android because it is worthless to me. I say 'Call my wife' It says. 'Calling Lowes Home Center'. It NEVER EVER gets it right. I have several friends with Androids and only one friend with that perfect voice that can get it to understand him, and even he often has to ask it twice . My wife HATES my Android and never bothered with a Smart phone before because she did not really like them. Too big and bulky. Her phone finally broke and she bought the 4S.
Like everything else Apple does. It just works. She talks to it. It understands every word. I talk to it ... It understands every word. .. and it ALWAYS seems to say something appropriate in response. True that the Android voice can do more than Siri. But I would rather have a voice that can do less properly than one that can do lots of stuff wrong. The only thing I find the Android voice useful for is a good laugh. I fire it up occasionally and ask it something and get a chuckle with just how wrong it gets my request. When she got Siri, we had a house full of people that evening and we passed my Android around playing with the voice. It did not once get anything right anyone said. 7 different voices asking it stuff and not once was it even close. Siri understood everyone perfectly.
So the Android voice is useless. Siri is useful. Therein lies the difference.
Re:It's a trap! (Score:5, Interesting)
But, just go on hating in ignorance, it's so much easier.
Re:Siri, Android and State of the Art (Score:4, Interesting)
you sir are a dumbass. my google is trained and understands me perfectly.
Siri obviously doesn't need any training to get to that level. That's important, since training a computer to do what you want it to do is a chore. Just like nearly nobody wants to write his/her own OS kernel just to get the real work done.
I will give Siri props. (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the people who worked on Watson, the computer mind put to the test on Jeopardy, is my former brother in law. When BrotherInLaw -1 began on computer AI there was, at the time, no one more advanced than he to challenge his thesis. The stuff we're seeing now in Siri is very much like what Watson did and projects BIL -1 has been working on for over 10 years, only put to "commercial / consumer" use; something inevitable. I doubt anyone involved with the first missions to the moon were all up in arms saying "What? Velcro? *ththt* That's been out for ages." Remember, to much of the media and your average user, this IS bleeding edge!
This is what happens with technology. It gets invented, it gets used in science and technology circles for a while then, if it's got commercial appeal, it ends up in the hands of Joe 6GB.To those lambasting Apple, while I assure you is something I enjoy, is sort of shooting fish in a barrel.
All that said, I use Android for one very simple reason: Apple's Ap Store policy makes me rage. Their puritanical requirements on nudity, "obscenity", etc as well as their tight fisted control over interface is preposterous and reprehensible. When I'd heard they forced a German news agency change their iPhone ap due to a few boobies was when I decided I would never, ever own one. Many of my users have them, they're bought by my employer, I've been offered a new iPhone each year, but for the last two years I've very much enjoyed my Android. The voice command blows, no argument. The screen pivot is comical. But all the aps I have, I enjoy. I can play around with whatever aps I want and not brick the device. To me, that's a fair cop; One programs functionality (Siri) does not out weigh freedom to do as I wish with my devices.
Re:Are you efing serious? (Score:2, Interesting)
Where are they claiming they're the first? There's no such claim on Apple's site about it - just lots of information about what it does. They're not claiming they were first, just that they have it as a major feature of the 4S. Show me in Apple's marketing where they are "trying to convince people they [were] first". They're not claiming that because they know that's not the case.
This is going to be an iPad thing all over again. Not the first tablet, but the first successful one - but then, they never claimed to have the first tablet either, just the best one for the market at the time in their opinion.
Also, when you claim something is revolutionary you don't necessarily have to be first - take semiconductors, for example. Bell labs certainly weren't the first to discover their properties or build working gates and junctions, but they did revolutionise the world with the transistor.
Or the steam engine. No one in their right mind will tell you that Trevithick was the "first" to make a steam engine, but he was the first to revolutionise the idea by using high pressure steam.
Revolution does not automatically imply "first", but it does imply a change in the way we view a technology. If Siri (which Apple did not invent or develop) spurs a surge of further development into voice recognition assistants that become widespread to the same sort of level as a PDA/Smartphone then that will have been a revolutionary step. Not because they invented it (who is claiming that?) but because they have packaged it in a way that makes it accessible and in a way that works, in the same way that Bell Labs did with the ideas behind the transistor.
Re:It's a trap! (Score:5, Interesting)
I just choked on my cup of tea reading that. It's voice recognition feed into some search engines, Wolfram Alpha, Yelp and some snippets from Wikipedia and the result plays through text to speech, mashed up with voice commands. If you call such a remix of off-the-shelf tech and existing services state-of-the art AI then you must be joking.
If it's so obvious and easy to do, why haven't you done it? From reports from actual users, it seems to me that for the first time we have a voice recognition system that can do more than respond to a small number of precisely-defined words. If that's not state-of-the-art, I want to know what world you live in, and can I have some of the futuristic tech you must be using?
Re:It's a trap! (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed voice commands have been in many phones for a while,
Including older iPhones - but here's the problem: They barely work. I use it very occasionally for simple things, like getting the time in winter when the phone is somewhere in an inside pocket.
From all I've seen, Siri works. That right there is the entire secret. It doesn't have 25613 features, but it works.
What's worse is Apple probably managed to get a patent or two on Siri.
They bought it. If there were any patents, they certainly now own them, but it's not Apple's fault or decision. Siri was almost complete when it got bought up.
It is so obvious that a bunch of coders at a hackathon could put something similar together in a few hours and have a demo of the same thing. Oh... wait... they've done exactly that, it's called Iris Alpha from a firm called, and it took eight hours.
Allegedly. Plust quite frankly, this nice video here:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dexetra.iris [android.com]
has me minus-convinced. Funny how there is always a cut between the question and the answer...
Point is, while Apple's idea is clever, the polish and packaging good and the marketing cleverest, but it is absolutely not start of the art artificial intelligence,
Agreed. It is, however, the state of the art of the personal assistant. It is precisely the polish, integration and Steve's obsession with perfection that makes it a success. I'm sure there's at least a hundred prototype projects around that can do more, have more advanced AI, etc. etc. etc. - but none of them are in a state where you could put them out into a mass market.
And that's why Apple is making more money than they know what to do with, and the Iris Alpha coders are playing "look ma" in the Android market place.
Personal disclaimer: Don't get this wrong as a lack of respect. The same reason is why a friend of mine makes a living with computer games, while I have the better game ideas but barely make what I spend on engine licenses, etc. and consider it a hobby - when I think a game is done, he starts the polishing process, the other 50% of development.
And Apple is a master of that part.
Re:Are you efing serious? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ah, the old "RDF" argument again.
Look, I will be the first to admit that there are a lot of vocal fans in the Apple community (just as there are in the Android community, although most of them seem to be more interested in judging what other people use), but not everything in Apple's success can be hand-waved away with "oh, it's just stupid sheeple falling for the RDF" - to do so is more a reflection on other people not learning what Apple *does* do right occasionally when creating and marketing a product. To simply dismiss its success out of hand as gullible people falling for glossy marketing is profoundly short sighted.
Marketing only gets you so far. It's certainly an essential element of the equation, but for continued, increasing success you actually need to back it up with a good product.
Not everything they do is "perfect" and there are certainly areas where some much-needed improvement exist (for just one example of several, on iOS there really needs to be a quick way to turn BT/Wifi on and off without going into the settings - I know this is trivial to do on Android and would be very useful), but overall they make products that work very well for the people who buy them.
The RDF is a crutch used by people who will predict doom and gloom and no sales for an announced Apple product because it's missing feature X, or it's a walled garden, or because you can buy cheaper products that do more, only for that New Apple Product to sell very well, seemingly in contradiction to all their knowledge on what should happen. It shows a clear short sightedness to say "pff, well since that does not fit my expectations of the market, it's just gullible fools falling for marketing" instead of "well that was unexpected, what are they doing right?"
That's not to say that Apple has it all worked out perfectly, but they are very good at judging the market on the whole.
Re:State of the art AI? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Nothing is AI, that's my point."
True Scotsmen Like this. "Any feature which has been successfully implemented is no longer AI".
That's a pretty sneaky bias for we carbon units to employ. What does it take for us to finally admit "Okay, that's AI. Not very smart AI, but then Smith over there isn't smart either." If for example you hook this Siri thing to the Watson system that can play world class Jeopardy, (tweaked for real sentences back rather than starting with Jeopardy Nouns), then watch out, here comes AI.
Any one person has a "collection of subroutines". We hit our biological limits some 170 years ago, so (basically) no one is a Renaissance Universal Polymath anymore. So we're cherry picking which of 5 billion people we want as our "Human Champion" vs the AI systems that are just on the brink of the Singularity.
We lost Chess, we lost Jeopardy. Your choice of 10 other classic test domains, which used to be hallmarks of Smart People.
So these are steps toward AI. No doubt about it. Then the last piece will be the Killer App, and then we'll all go to our bookshelves and re-read people like Kurzweil. And Asimov's robot stories.