Slashdot Mirror
Is Siri Smarter Than Google?
storagedude writes "Google could go the way of the dodo if ultra intelligent electronic agents (UIEA) make their way into the mainstream, according to technology prognosticator Daniel Burrus. Siri is just the first example of how a UIEA could end search as we know it. By leveraging the cloud and supercomputing capabilities, Siri uses natural language search to circumvent the entire Google process. If Burrus is right, we'll no longer have to wade through '30,000,000 returns in .0013 milliseconds' of irrelevant search results."
Whenever I ask Siri a question, she always refers me to a google search.
f u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmng
This assumes voice recognition becomes leaps and bounds better than it is right now. I've cursed at Siri more than I've asked it questions. Maybe it's my Midwest accent.
Can we mark the OP as flamebait?
So he's saying that if we perfect assistants to the point where they'll be able to answer our questions directly, we won't have to go look for the answers ourselves?
No shit, Sherlock.
At least thats been my experience so far.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
...on the sort of basic questions Siri's capable of answering, something went horribly wrong with your query.
This is a non-story. Next.
Somewhere behind Siri are search engines, and will remain search engines.
The only thing that's unique about Siri is that the search engine companies can't put their ads in there.
Bruce Perens.
My German Shepherd is smarter than your Siri.
You mean "bullshit artist" right?
I don't follow much of the esoteric details (and don't give a yayhoo about speed) but when I enter a term in a search engine, i.e. "RF video combiners," I'd like some return of technical documents and (what would be really nice) individual techies with their own webpage showing how to implement and what pitfalls to avoid. Instead I get a bunch of sales/marketing aggregates, tech discussions that are really disguised sales/marketing crap, ebay listings, go-get-bids, sorority-sluts, etc.
mfwright@batnet.com
If Burrus is right, we'll no longer have to wade through '30,000,000 returns in .0013 milliseconds' of irrelevant search results.
Hmm... If that's your experience, then your search query is way off. Learn to ask better questions. Siri won't help if you're an idiot.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
or has Google's search gotten crappier lately?
I was trying to find a purchase or at least pre-order page for a specific laptop model. Top search result on Google was an Amazon link - an Amazon search page for that exact model, showing 0 results followed by the regular "you may also be interested in" links (most of which weren't even tangentially related to what I was looking for).
That's not all - get this. Google noted that it was recommending this because I had already visited the page
Really, Google? Really? You track my every move, scour the entire Internet for information, and then you use it to give me a result that is not only wrong, but that you know I've already found (and found useless)? Really?
I mean, come on, Google. "Turning to the Dark Side" is supposed to at least make you more effective (bad guys always win for at least the first three acts), not make you worse.
I've heard complaints that Suri is getting dumber over time. That for some people it used to return the results that they wanted, but now that it is building up its database of what (I'm guessing) a majority of people mean when they ask a question, that at least a minority of users no longer get the results they used to receive for the same query. If Suri gets overwhelmed by queries that can be considered in pop-culture terms to mean something other than their strict meanings, she could quickly become both useless and frustrating.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Siri's really just a slick interface to Google's "I'm feeling lucky" button, with pre-processing done prior to performing an actual search. Google pops up a map if it looks like you're talking about a location; it provides a definition if you ask for one, etc etc. Google already contains a lot of the AI-like characteristics shown by Siri.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
No.
Posterity, my posterior.
Didn't even Wozniak say that Siri isn't as good as the advertisements?
Steve quoted on various news sites:
I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me. I’ll be saying, over and over again in my car, ‘Call the Lark Creek Steak House,’ and I can’t get it done. Then I pick up my Android, say the same thing, and it’s done. [...] On the 4S I can only do that when Siri can connect over the Internet. But many times it can’t connect. I’ve never had Android come back and say, ‘I can’t connect over the Internet. [...] Plus I get navigation. Android is way ahead on that.
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
If I want to know something, I just have to ask my ex. She knows everything.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
"Ultra Intelligent Electronic Agent"? What the hell *that* means?
There's nothing "Ultra Intelligent" in this kind of systems. My team built an equivalent to Siri, but oriented to web tasks. Believe me, there was little intelligence behind it. Most of the work is actually learning and relating tasks to sets of actions (this is grunt work and crowdsourcing produces great results at low cost). The conversation part is a no-brainer. If you provide a context, it's an even stupider agent: I trust it with my users and passwords so it can do boring/repetitive tasks I taught it to perform, and I never have to give him any additional context data unless my password has expired. And surprise surprise, there's no supercomputer involved.
These agents will never replace Google because they do different things. I wonder what Burrus was smoking when he wrote TFA...
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
Siri is for the most part a front end on wolfram alpha, another search engine....so basically the author is saying that perhaps one search engine is better than another. Unprecedented I know
Monstar L
Siri will replace Google in the same way keyboards have replaced computers. Siri is an interface to search, not a replacement for it.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Depends on what you ask. But that's a good point.
Siri "circumvents" Google search for certain things. "Find me a seafood restaurant" will go to Yelp, which has reviews and such. "How many grams in an ounce" will go to Wolfram-Alpha. Otherwise, it sticks it in a query and ships it off to Google.
Needless to say, Google isn't sitting still. "Find me a seafood restaurant" in Google will also provide me a list of local restaurants with reviews, much like Yelp does. Arguably, Google's ratings may be better because they are collected from a broad spectrum of sources (user reviews from various review sites, individual bloggers, professional reviews) versus whoever Apple decided to sign a deal with. Speaking of which, you have to consider what kind of deals are being done in the background. Woz recently pointed out something I found a bit disturbing:
So where Siri used to give answers, Siri now gives advertising.
A couple of months back my family and I were having a debate whether falling thirty feet would break your legs or kill you, so we asked Siri. She responded back with a list of buildings we could jump off in our area over thirty feet high.
I'm all for scientific tests... but ouch.
The "task of actually creating them" might become trivial, but pronouncing "UIEA" never will.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
Sarcastic/Satirical Futuristic Surrealism ahead:
"What car should I buy?"
"You will buy a Ford."
"Will?! I hate those! You know, Found On Road Dead."
"No. You WILL buy a Ford."
"Why?"
"Because you will be arrested for buying anything else."
"What does THAT mean?"
"You are on Main Street, 734 Main or thereabouts within a 100 foot margin, near the Walmart block. Authorities have been alerted that if your credit card shows any other purchase of a motor vehicle other than Ford, you will be deemed a terrorist and treated accordingly. Have a nice day!"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Siri must be pretty amazing if it can tell you all the prime numbers greater than 87. Maybe it's smarter than Google after all.
This is the third incorrect syntax flame I've seen in as many minutes. Leverage has a meaning distinct from "use" Use means, well, use. "He used the razor and cut himself." Leverage means "use to your advantage." It has a distinct meaning that the word is unambiguous and clear in that use for that distinct meaning, thus not inappropriate, even if overused as a buzzword, with leveraging synergy and all. You'd never say "He leveraged the razor and cut himself" because that isn't using to his advantage, so they aren't synonyms as you assert. Also, as I think about it, leverage has a lot of subtext. You don't leverage animate objects. You leverage your friends for a new job, but you don't leverage a razor for a close shave. I understand that it's mostly just a peeve of yours, and not a legitimate gripe, but there are enough non-native speakers here, I thought I'd correct your incorrect correction.
Learn to love Alaska
Quotes are wonderful things. If you knew shit about searching, you would know that you are supposed to put fucking quotes around things you want to do literal matching for.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
You'd never say "He leveraged the razor and cut himself" because that isn't using to his advantage
You obviously don't know many Emos.
Blank until
Hence phrases like "leveraging the cloud and supercomputing capabilities", and "ultra intelligent electronic agents". If anything, the smarts behind Siri comes from Wolfram Alpha, which is a question-answering system for factual questions. Most of the rest of what Siri does is just vertical search.
Years ago, a friend of mine worked for 'Ask Jeeves', which boasted natural language searches. It wasn't doing well in competition with other search engines; the assumption was that their natural language searches didn't work well enough to attract people to use it. My friend told me that, from their internal metrics, they knew that almost none of their users actually even tried to use natural language search terms; they just put in a few key words and hit "Go", just like they do with any other search engine.
Picking out the key words in a phrase to use for a search is a simple cognitive task that even small children can master, and it's actually easier than composing a complete, natural sentence. Most of a natural sentence is there to provide social context and cues about intentions that are irrelevant noise for a machine -- and often, we'd prefer to do without the extra work of providing that information.
The difference between Siri and what this author is referencing as "Google" is query entry by voice or query entry by keyboard.
There is a far more important difference. Google is not getting the opportunity to display the search results, Apple is filtering and doing the presentation, so Google is not getting a chance to display ads.
... they are just vehicles to deliver targeted ads. Google is a targeted advertising company and filters like Siri threaten their core business.
This is *critical* because ads are Google's lifeblood. Search, email, social, etc
The problem with google filled with search results (and ads) for google's search, just specific to a major site (ebay, amazon, etc) isn't new [1]. It's not even particularly distressing.
The problem is more likely due to model proliferation - why are there dozens if not hundreds of models of Asus laptops? Why will you only find a particular model at some stores? The problem is one of retailers protecting themselves from channel conflict (i.e., trying to avoid this scenario: browse store - find item, scan barcode, buy on Amazon, lather, rinse repeat) and manufacturers protecting themselves from actually competing with each other in a commoditized space - when Windows is the standard, why try to be better than the other manufacturer - you simply cut your margins and people buy your hardware, or you don't (i.e., you maintain some quality) and other manufacturers eat your lunch.
I had this exact problem with this exact manufacturer (a year or so ago I wanted an AMD APU-based laptop with big screen for my dad). I ended up giving up as there was no way I could find the exact model that fit my requirements (E350, 15+" screen, non-sucky reviews). I ended up not buying anything, and a few months later my Dad got a new Macbook Air.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Google now knows my IP. It used to be that if you googled "what is my ip" you had to go to a site that was at the top of the search results. Now the Google answers it for you, god knows how, it must be magic!
Same with conversions, phrase it in natural language and Google answers it for you, rather then forcing you to find a conversion site.
BUT these things are easy. Answering: gosh like I need to knows the thingy for my thingy so I can do thingy... that is a bit harder. It can tell me what my IP is because it knows what I mean with IP. IF however I was a lame artist and was asking what Intellectual Property belonged to me, I could go very confused by thinking those digits belonged to me.
What is stockprice X doing is easy. As long as you can regonize "stockprize" and the ticket ID, you got a simple search. But people don't often search like that outside of commercials. Who cares what the stock price is doing. Most people don't have stocks.
The real problem with search is that A: People often don't know what they are searching for and B: scammers want to get people to visit their website regardless of relevance.
Take "review". It is a nearly useless term to search for when looking for a review. Most sites that come up don't even have a revue. Then their are the endless link spammers so that if you combine search terms, they just show up because they have links to all the terms but not related. "Linux squeezebox" should NOT find pages that discuss a Linux distro and link to a boombox ad. But they do.
And SIRI isn't any better at it. Apart from the fact that it often doesn't understand what you are saying, it also can't combine languages. As a dutch person, I am used to use english for the produkt but dutch for "price/prijs" so that I get the product but with dutch sellers. It often works, SIRI can't grasp the concept.
If search is going to improve, we need a company that is going to brutally cull pages that break searches. All the link farms, GONE. Simply not indexed. Any review site, each review page ONLY carries one keyword, the product reviewed, not indexed for all the other link spam. No review yet available for this product? Then it MUST carry the keyword "NO_REVIEW".
And that is never going to happen because keywords WERE invented to accomplish this and they just became a spammers tool. Google is a spammers tool and the moment another search engine becomes a worthy SEO target, it too will become a spammers tool.
The only way to solve it is to let humans review each found site and brutally cull it. A single keyword wrong? A single suspect link? BANNED, the entire domain, for at least a year. Only then might SEO die.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
For 90% of the stuff I ask her to do, she resorts to a google search anyway...