Microsoft's Satya Nadella Shown Up By Confused Cortana Assistant

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was a little embarrassed at a Salesforce conference today when he tested the company's personal virtual assistant during a presentation. Slightly fluffing the question 'Show me my most at-risk opportunities', Nadella was dismayed to find Cortana offering him a Bing page with the search term 'Show me to buy milk at this opportunity'. Two further efforts to discover the exposure of his shares failed to achieve their aim, and eventually the CEO of Microsoft gave up. The fact that he stumbled over his first attempt at the question seemed to floor Cortana, which uses the 'Einstein' AI engine, and which has been more praised for its accurate speech recognition than its ability to understand what an array of interpreted words actually mean.

Comments

Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

He asked a basically nonsense question. If i ask "why is a fish?" and cortana doesn't understand, is this news?

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[viperidaenz]

When he tried again, twice, without messing up the question it still failed to understand the question.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't make silly! His Indian English is desiring no correction.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Oligonicella]

Show me my most at-risk opportunities.

That's hardly nonsense. I understood it with no problem and I'll bet you did too really, so it's not far fetched to expect an actual AI to understand it. If not understood, an intelligent response would have been "What kind of opportunities?" or perhaps "Show how?", seeking clarification. Instead, it simply went wandering down its search paths until it couldn't continue and then spat out whatever.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what did it mean in real human speech? "Show my upcoming deadlines?" Phrasing it that way would be more understandable for an AI or person. "Show my biggest problems?" I wouldn't expect an AI to come up with a good answer for that, unless you had already listed and rated them in some way.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Darinbob]

All business related questions from executives tend to be nonsense or gibberish.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[imidan]

why is a fish?

I don’t know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Dashiva Dan]

"why is a fish?"

Because one of it's legs is both the same?

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was always taught that was the difference between a duck.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[MightyMartian]

Yes, goddamit, I want to know "why is fish?" and if Microsoft's shitty assistant can't answer question, well Microsoft's programmers are all fucking incompetents who should be forced to work licking grease of the floor at McDonalds.

Actually, I felt that way after spending half a day trying to figure out why the fuck WinRM can't listen on the port provided to it by a Group Policy. "Why is Microsoft?" is probably a better question.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Eastern Indian people are incapable of pronouncing the letter "t". That's why you'll always hear them say something like "thirdeen" instead of "thirteen".

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because one of it is/has legs is both the same?

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[lgw]

Still makes 0 sense to me. I would respond "could you ask the question a different way", as it doesn't even parse.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[rubycodez]

A fish is because of hydrogen, time, gravity and nuclear fusion.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone with a professional job would know that an at risk opportunity is an opportunity to make money that has a relatively high risk of not working out. I really can't understand how anyone even without a professional job couldn't figure that out.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

He was speaking at a CRM conference. Accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities are the most common and relevant domain terms in that environment. Your suggestions are far more convoluted in that context.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Dahamma]

You only understood it because you already had context. Without context, it's a ridiculously vague question.

Sure, the next step would be to carry on a conversation to clarify details but it's not there yet. IT'S NOT AN AI!

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Dahamma]

He asked a basically nonsense question. If i ask "why is a fish?" and cortana doesn't understand, is this news?

That's a perfectly understandable question, and if he had asked it, the proper answer is "Is that the best you can do? Go fuck yourself, Satya".

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[MrNaz]

Aah. So you've identified the missing feature in Cortana. It needs to add to its AI engine a list of all junkets and other commercial events, and cross match them with the user's current location. So next time a question is asked, it can process it using the appropriate vocabulary for the occasion.

Later, in an workshop for MBAs:
User: Cortana, tell me how to leverage synergies while focusing on our core competencies in a manner that maximizes shareholder value through enhancing business efficacy?
Cortana: By sitting in your office and formulating massive spreadsheets that don't really do anything other than create impressive charts that you will embed in your PowerPoint slide deck and present at the next stockholders' AGM.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

So was he referring to stocks available for purchase that had a high volatility? Potential vendors to his business that offered low prices but uncertain delivery schedules? Opportunities to score a blow job from a hot chick that may or may not tell his wife?

Context, dammit.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Dunbal]

I think Satya should just trust to karma and accept the answer that Cortana gives him.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Dunbal]

Of course slashcode doesn't like so many caps but here goes anyway:

MELON MELON MELON

+++OUT OF CHEESE ERROR+++

?REDO FROM START

With apologies to the late Terry Pratchett.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's incredibly ambiguous, even for a human.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

And his Indian attitudes. He has done nothing to address the vacation inequality here. Most Indians here are allowed to take two or more weeks off at a time while even single days off for a long weekend are denied for American citizens. If my wife didn't need the great health insurance we have, I would have quit over a decade ago.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Vacation inequality is a great way to put it. Seeing Asian coworkers be allowed to take long vacations every year is just unfair. After I was denied a full week off for my honeymoon, I started looking for another job. In the end I was happy that time off was denied since my fiancée split, but I was still angry about it.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean it was just some sugar over "SELECT name FROM opportunities SORT BY at-risk LIMIT 5;" ?

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

And he is never going to do a damn thing about that since he is Indian. The last week long vacation I had was in 1993. I'm sick of the, to use your word, inequality.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[ranton]

So was he referring to stocks available for purchase that had a high volatility? Potential vendors to his business that offered low prices but uncertain delivery schedules? Opportunities to score a blow job from a hot chick that may or may not tell his wife?

Context, dammit.

It had context based on the accounts and opportunities entered into the CRM software Cortana was integrated with. I really don't see why this is hard for people to understand.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[ranton]

You only understood it because you already had context. Without context, it's a ridiculously vague question.

Sure, the next step would be to carry on a conversation to clarify details but it's not there yet. IT'S NOT AN AI!

And luckily Cortana also had context because she was integrated with Salesforce for purposes of the demo

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fish is because of evolutionary processes.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

More Fish!

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[aaaaaaargh!]

I don't understand the question either.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[aaaaaaargh!]

I kindly disagree. A truly intelligent response would have been:

"Oh go fuck yourself, you useless corporate drone!"

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[anarcobra]

They don't understand because they lack context from not having read the article.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Hognoxious]

Anyone with a professional job would know that an at risk opportunity is an opportunity to make money that has a relatively high risk of not working out.

I think even some sales people would get it, given time.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never used the expression "Most at-risk opportunities" in my entire life. And I've never ever heard anyone using it before. I guess that Microsoft's CEO probably translated some Indian expression into English in a literal way, word by word, and that's just linguistically wrong. It's like using Google Translate.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

As I read it, Cortana understood the question perfectly. It was Nadella who "was dismayed to find Cortana offering him a Bing page".

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[bickerdyke]

which eerily connects them to people from Franken.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

When he tried again, twice, without messing up the question it still failed to understand the question.

...making me question the intellectual capability of a person who clearly fails to grasp the fact that it's a shitty question, regardless of engine used.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Attila Dimedici]

Yes, it is not far fetched to expect an actual AU to understand it. However, Cortana is not truly an AI. Additionally, it is far fetched to believe that Cortana, even if it was an AI, would be able to answer the question (unless specifically trained to do so).

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's confusing as I don't think the opportunity is at risk. It's a risky opportunity. What does "Show me the most at risk persons?" mean?

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Essentially this.

I've done my fair share of sentence recognition, and dealing with English is a horrific job.
English, as it is used by most, rarely follows proper English syntax.

English being as flexible as it is makes it a horror for sentence recognition because it increases complexity through the roof.
It is one of English's biggest advantages and disadvantages because it allows for such a huge vocabulary of expression, but it is also a pain to learn if it isn't your first language. (and to be honest, it is still a pain for native speakers to understand if they never went beyond the lowest grades at school, they have a very basic understanding of English that is decent enough to get them by in the world, which is fine)

I'd honestly go as far as saying English is objectively harder to learn than some of the Asian languages simply due to the complexity of sentence structure alone.
There is a semi-joke that goes around that you can tell you understand a language well if you can understand subtle word-play humour.
But that doesn't really apply to English, word-play in English involves mangling words and sentence structure even more so than it already is!

Colloquial non-standard sentences will be the truest test of any sentence parser.
Using a social network as research material for your parser is a goldmine to get it to understand what the hell is going on.
Combine it with some machine learning and actual humans to tag what a sentence means would probably be the best bet to making it learn quickly.
You could make a game out of it, similar to that Google Images tagging game where 2 people got to tag images and ended up leading to people labelling everything "nigger".

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they don't understand why Nardella would ask a question that hasn't been rehearsed thousands of time to ensure it would work? ...it's called "preparation".

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[macs4all]

Maybe they don't understand why Nardella would ask a question that hasn't been rehearsed thousands of time to ensure it would work? ...it's called "preparation".

This. He forgot the first rule of Demos: If it can fuck up, it will.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[david_thornley]

Really? I thought I knew what it meant, then when I got some context it turned out I was right.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[lgw]

What does "CRM" mean? This all sounds like management bafflegab, not English. Voice recognition is hard enough in one language.

Of course, if some effort was made to integrate Cortana with some specific product, then understanding the opaque technical jargon associated with that product seems reasonable, but let's not pretend this isn't opaque technical jargon.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Dahamma]

You had context from the start. The first sentence in the article SAID it was a Salesforce conference.

Ironically if you put "most at risk opportunities" without any other context into Google the top result is "jobs most at risk from robots". (clearly this is not one, yet).

The next results (not including the article itself) are HIV-related, or states at risk of disasters. Business or investment opportunities don't even show up unless you specifically add those words.

Re:Cant see why this is a problem.

[Talderas]

The question makes perfect sense. First, the context a Sales Force conference. For the unenlightened, Sales Force is a Customer Relations Software (CRM) platform that larger sales departments will use to track what they call opportunities which is basically leads for potential sales. So when Satya asked Cortana to show him the most at-risk opportunities he was asking Cortana to show him contacts or companies that he was at risk of losing.

Re: Cant see why this is a problem.

[Talderas]

Customer Relations Management. Sales departments use it to track customers as well as leads and opportunities for new sales/customers.

The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Greyfox]

The milk was past its use-by date and was very much at risk. Cortana correctly realized that it would be bad for meat creatures to try to consume it and was trying to direct him to get a fresh one.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Dutch Gun]

This isn't the first time faulty speech recognition has embarrassed Microsoft during a live demo. Anyone remember the last time this happened?

To be fair to Cortana, how exactly do you respond to "Show me my most at-risk opportunities"? What does that even mean? Who talks like that?

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[PRMan]

CEOs.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Harlequin80]

Anyone with a sales background would understand that. I would want to know which sales opportunities were most likely to go wrong / get beaten. However that isn't a straight forward question to answer and not one I expect a computer to answer. Is it based on time frames, competitors, ability to supply, some other unknown variable, who knows.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[tnk1]

Well if you're in Salesforce, when you are working with a sales person, they open what is called an "Opportunity". It's a document used to track the progress of a potential sale through the pipeline.

If I was a sales guy, I might have a customer who has just decided to order the 1 TB storage upgrade to Application X, which the customer already owns. The sales rep opens a new opportunity for the prospective purchase, links the existing customer information to it and tracks that through to the end.

Someone like a CEO would run their own reports based on how all of the company's opportunities look on a regular basis, especially deals which are at-risk of not closing, so this all makes sense in context. Generally your sales forecasting is provided by creating reports based on your opportunities and the tracking information within. A percentage is assigned to an opportunity to show how far it has gone, with 100% being Closed Won.

tl;dr, it's a sales opportunity tracking ticket in Salesforce. Which is probably why he was using that lingo at a Salesforce conference. Presumably Cortana would have had access to his Salesforce accounts somehow. Or, more likely, a fake account with humorous "at-risk" customers like Apple and Google or something.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Dutch Gun]

tl;dr, it's a sales opportunity tracking ticket in Salesforce. Which is probably why he was using that lingo at a Salesforce conference. Presumably Cortana would have had access to his Salesforce accounts somehow. Or, more likely, a fake account with humorous "at-risk" customers like Apple and Google or something.

Ah, got it. That makes a *lot* more sense now. Thanks for the explanation.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Anonymous Coward]

This all just points out

(a) How unbelievably vast the backing store of context-based queues and contextual knowledge that humans take for granted is
(b) Why computers will probably undergo the Singularity before they become useful personal assistants

Nobody knows how to design a computational bullshit-rejection filter that works one tenthpart well enough to successfully prune the tree of meaningless, irrelevant or wrong matches that a human-sized knowledgebase results in. Hell, probably better than 50% of PEOPLE don't have a working bullshit-rejection filter for that matter.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[FranTaylor]

Why computers will probably undergo the Singularity before they become useful personal assistants

My phone is much better at remembering phone numbers and grocery items than I am, it's already quite useful as a personal assistant.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Dutch Gun]

A simple list, even one in electronic form, is not really a personal assistant, is it? I think the term "personal assistant" implies the ability to actively do things for you, like answer questions, collecting information, etc.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Anonymous Coward]

How lazy people have become, myself included. I remember back when I did actually remember the phone numbers of all of my family and friends. Now I have a hard time remembering my own number.

It's not because I have a bad memory, it's because my phone has made me lazy.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Anonymous Coward]

Well. For your parent poster, it apparently is. I would venture the guess that whether something constitutes a (useful) personal assistant or not depends on the opinion of the person getting the assistance, rather than someone else.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Anne Thwacks]

And they have added another 7 digits to all the phone numbers.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Cederic]

"What's the address of Alfred?"
"Bugger. Tell me Sharon's phone number"
"Mail my dance competition team for me"

Yeah, that simple list of people and their details is answering questions and letting me do useful stuff with the information.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Coren22]

It can even remind you of an appointment, and even remind you with plenty of time to get there.

In Android, it will parse the location in calendar events and suggest when to leave with current traffic to get to the meeting/location in time for the appointment.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Anonymous Coward]

Only illiterate CEOs. The real term is "opportunity risk", not "at-risk opportunity". Nadella doesn't understand the English language.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[Solandri]

Well if you're in Salesforce, when you are working with a sales person, they open what is called an "Opportunity". It's a document used to track the progress of a potential sale through the pipeline.

And this is reason #7 why people dislike marketing. "Opportunity" = 5 syllables. "Potential sale" = 4 syllables. Just use the shorter and more descriptive term. As a bonus it'll save you from ever having to type sentences like "It's a document used to track the progress of a potential sale through the pipeline." because it'll be obvious from the shorter name.

Re:The Milk Was Most At Risk

[tnk1]

It's not that bad. But think of it this way, this is a sales and marketing tool, so they're really just torturing themselves.

heads are going to roll for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

making the big dick in the company looked stupid does not promote careers

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another reason why Malware 10 is a steaming pile of shit.

Satya Nadella: Making Steve Ballmer look good since 2014.

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[jrminter]

Let's make sure the right head rolls... This was a rookie mistake that no CEO should ever make. One NEVER tries a demo for the first time before an important audience. If the CEO isn't willing to do a dry run, then he should either get a product manager who has the time to do it or the board should get a new CEO.

Re: heads are going to roll for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor redaction does not either

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[FranTaylor]

This was a rookie mistake that no CEO should ever make. One NEVER tries a demo for the first time before an important audience.

Steve Ballmer made exactly the same mistake with the surface tablet, it failed him during a demo.

Bill Gates crashed Windows 98 while demoing on live television.

So EVERY Microsoft CEO has made the "rookie mistake that no CEO should ever make"!

Cool!

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only Surface malfunction video I saw was when some bald, non-Ballmer guy, let's call him Archibald, was trying to use IE.

Re: heads are going to roll for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well John Thompson picked him, and Thompson was selected for his political connections to Obama and his race. It's no surprise when you don't pick the best candidate for a job when they don't do the same.

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Apple presentations are tightly scripted, and have a backup of each device right there on stage if something goes wrong.
Not only is it tightly scripted you can see that they have practiced the whole speech together with operating the device very well.

And when they have to talk to seri they get the person that speaks american english without an accent (probably a person who has lived in many different parts of America in their youth so never developed a local accent).

Re: heads are going to roll for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing wrong with hiring a moron to get White House influence. It's a smart business move.

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm more concerned if they don't "demo" it, but instead just put up a fake show. If they're gonna sell that shit, it better work for the customers too!

At demos, expect the demo daemons to show up, regularly. This is expected and understandable to most everyone.

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[robi5]

Cortana is at least an existing thing. Leaders, rather than corporate drones like Nadella, can pull off stuff like this, even on products which are in development, most at-risk of failing a demo: http://appleinsider.com/articl...

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand Microsoft. Microsoft is not a software company. Microsoft is an evil company that uses software to deliver evil.

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[Coren22]

Very likely it was an issue with the voice recognition understanding his accent, it likely would have required him to run through the demo to pick up the issue.

Also, even in the context of Salesforce, and what an opportunity is, I think that question is poorly worded.

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[david_thornley]

When the demonstration involves voice recognition, the CEO needs to do the dry runs. Voice recognition software doesn't work the same for everyone.

Re:heads are going to roll for this...

[bledri]

Let's make sure the right head rolls... This was a rookie mistake that no CEO should ever make. One NEVER tries a demo for the first time before an important audience. If the CEO isn't willing to do a dry run, then he should either get a product manager who has the time to do it or the board should get a new CEO.

How do you know he didn't do a dry run? He may have fumbled the the buy the milk line, he could have meant "remember the milk" which is an actual company and an actual app. But I bet he tried "Show me my most at-risk opportunities" before the demo and it worked. Or something really close worked and he choked.

Seriously, demos fail all the time for "obvious in hindsight" reasons. But we are not Merlin, so our hindsight comes after the fact. Besides gross incompetence on his part, which is of course possible. Maybe the acoustics of the environment confused the voice recognition. Or maybe someone else made a rookie mistake and rolled out an "upgrade" at a really inopportune time. All sorts of wonderful stuff can make a demo go wrong. I'm sure that when Bill Gates crashed Windows 98 live at Comdex it was not the first time he had plugged a USB device into a Windows 98 system.

Before any heads roll, maybe they should figure out what went wrong. And frankly to the OP, the whole "fire anyone that makes a mistake" attitude is pretty lame.

Props, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Props for attempting voice recognition in a live demo. Most people don't even trust a network connection for a demo.

What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, "show me my most at-risk opportunities"? Show me your what now? I'm pretty sure I'm human, and I'm pretty sure I speak English and have a fair knowledge of "stuff", but I honestly have no idea what this sentence means. Opportunities that are at risk? Does that mean a chance to win a free lunch that is ending soon?

If someone said "show me my most at-risk opportunities" too me I would probably consider that I'd misheard and look for near-fit sentences that made sense too. At the very least I'd ask them to repeat themselves to confirm that they were, in fact, speaking gibberish.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[spongman]

I'd recommend not shelling out the $2K for dreamforce. It's probably not for you...

Re:What did the question even mean?

[tomhath]

It's definitely salesman jargon ("What potential customers are most likely to not complete the sale"). That's a big problem for any speech recognition, words have different meaning in different context.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[penguinoid]

From the video, it seems there was a list of specific opportunities and some numbers related to them.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes sense after taking Business Gibberish: "How to sound smart without saying anything that is actually intelligent".

It is a core MBA course.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Brett Buck]

Cortana finds gibberish double-talk incomprehensible - just like the rest of us!

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Nadella is a corporate buzzword whore. In hindsight, maybe Ballmer wasn't so bad .....

Re:What did the question even mean?

[PPH]

"show me my most at-risk opportunities"

They must be talking about that hot blonde staff assistant we just hired. The one that all the other guys are going to be making a move on soon.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Bite The Pillow]

Here it is used in context:

Supply lines today are longer, and more complex than ever, and it is vital to proactively identify at-risk opportunities in your supplier base to prevent costly delays and disruptions. With global capabilities, extensive industry experience, and multi-cultural expertise, SAI Global can help you quickly identify critical supplier non-compliances, and target program investments where theyâ(TM)ll have the greatest impact.

It is business jargon, understood by the kind of people that Microsoft has the best relationship with - mid to upper management.

So what you said was "I have no idea about business. When someone says things that are outside my experience I assume there is no meaning, and all of business is therefore meaningless to me."

There is a certain amount of truth to that, but it's no different from developers talking about DRY and Single Responsibility Principle, and the like. I want my code to be dry? How does it get wet? Does that mean the drought is ending or just beginning?

We have a common language, known as jargon, that makes communication more efficient. As does every industry. If you don't understand it, you can ask an actual question, or you can sound like an anonymously retarded window-licking asshole brained fart sandwich. So kudos for posting anonymously, and wasting 5 peoples' mod points. Because obviously the are just as much fart sandwich, and would have up modded something just as ignorant. Might as well be 5 all in one place.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[bloodhawk]

all you are showing is a lack of knowledge of business. anyone that works in sales or business would have no issues understanding the sentence.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am pretty sure you aren't a seasoned investor, entrepreneur, or corporate executive. I infer this given your inability to understand the very simple concept of "at-risk opportunities."

Re:What did the question even mean?

[lakeland]

It's standard sales jargon and so would be well understood at Dreamforce (salesforce's big conference). Leads are people you've met which might want to buy something in the future. If you feel a lead is starting to show meaningful interest then you mark them as an opportunity. Opportunities have sizes (how much can you sell to this person) as well as risk (how likely am I to land this sale).

So "Show me my most at-risk opportunities" makes perfect sense - give me a list of opportunities which have been assigned to me where their risk is is in say the top 5.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[FranTaylor]

So "Show me my most at-risk opportunities" makes perfect sense -

The software worked perfectly, the piece of junk he is holding in his hand is his most at-risk opportunity.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a poorly worded question. He could have simply said. "Show me my riskiest opportunities. "

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Nyder]

all you are showing is a lack of knowledge of business. anyone that works in sales or business would have no issues understanding the sentence.

And this is why it failed. Cortana isn't working in sales or business.

I just wonder why the fuck the person didn't actually try asking his question some time before the conference to test it out? This is like compiling some code, give a person the *.exe when you never bothered to run it yourself to see if it works. Sure, you think it should work great, but it probably won't. You have to test it first. Or even worse, Nadella is a CEO who actually believes the hype wagon his company spews, and doesn't bother to actually use the products his company makes.

Idiot got what he deserved.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this rated Insightful?
If you bother to watch the demo you would understand it was in the very clear context of Salesforce and data aggregation.
Opportunities are concepts inside Salesforce apparently and they carry with them an element of risk.
The whole idea of what he was trying to do was to show that aside typed-in natural language to run queries with on top of various data sources (which he did right before the voice part) you can also use your voice, with the help of Cortana.
So basically Cortana should have picked the context and pass "Opportunities", "Risk" and maybe "most" to Salesforce.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Cederic]

I believe the word you're seeking is "jargon".

You know, that stuff you use every fucking day, that makes your professional speech sound like total nonsense to people that don't work in your domain.

Did you take an MBA too or just fail the entrance exam?

Re:What did the question even mean?

[AmiMoJo]

I guess they are allowing other software to tie in to Cortana now. In the same way that Google allows other apps to create Now cards that the user can search by voice, for example. So in Salesforce lingo "opportunities" has some meaning, and the idea is that Cortana can understand this jargon because the Salesforce app tells her about it.

Looks like it needs a bit more work, but it's nice to see that they are working on the ability to handle jargon that humans use if given the right context and a few hints.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[thegarbz]

I'm pretty sure I'm human

That's you're problem. This was directed at sales and marketing types.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Hognoxious]

Nice, except that doesn't mean the same thing.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[robi5]

> It is business jargon, understood by the kind of people that Microsoft has the best relationship with - mid to upper management.

When it comes to business leaders (rather than, say, the IT department), Microsoft can talk to midlevel management or lower. It is SAP that talks to the business at the C-level.

Microsoft has products that run an employee directory or mail server. SAP, and to a different extent, Salesforce, have products that run the business.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're a moron.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[samwichse]

Hilariously I just did an "Ok Google" and read this gibberish to it.

It recognized it perfectly pointed to a slew of articles about Cortana failing publicly.

Hah!

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, so maybe they need to develop voice recognition specific for different industries, like Dragon Naturally Speaking does today for medical and other fields. The average person isn't going to talk like that unless they're having a stroke.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Coren22]

Doesn't "OK Google" just transcribe what you say into a Google search? I don't personally talk to my phone, I think it is weird to do so, but then I always just picture Scotty talking to the 1980's computer mouse "Hello Computer".

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is what it does when it fails to find anything for it to do based upon keywords.

If you say ask it for directions or ask what your appointments are or ask it to set an alarm it performs that action.

Re:What did the question even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more like intentional obfuscation than jargon.
DRY is an acronym, it's not an existing word used in a fashion that's incongruous with it's defined meaning.
In the given context, at risk opportunities actually refers to opportunities to prevent costly delays and disruptions that you may not get to take advantage of. Attaching any useful meaning to that, in a business situation or otherwise, is a nebulous target.

Cortana is no better or worse then Siri

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately Mr. Nadella found out how voice recognition is kind of finicky about how you talk. Its you voice recognition sucks for the most part and why its so
much a gimmick then a tool. In the end only plain talkers need apply to use a voice command system. Sometimes these geeks get too optimistic about this stuff not even really trying it out themselves in real world environments. In my opinion Windows 10 was just a fluff up of Windows 8.1 with some of these rather useless real world features. In the real world people want a OS to be a OS and nothing more. If anything Mr. Nadella needs to rethink Microsoft's future as a developer of useful tools or one that makes gimmicky software to sell to geeks. I like the OS part of Windows 10 and nothing else.

Re: Cortana is no better or worse then Siri

[Anonymous Coward]

Better or worse -than- Siri, you mean.

Cortana has been worse than Google for me.

[hackwrench]

I tried to tell Cortana "Windows Media Player" and it couldn't get that right.

google understood me

[Anonymous Coward]

here's what i got.

What did you mean to say?

[hackwrench]

You probably shouldn't use Cortana to dictate your Slashdot posts.

Re:What did you mean to say?

[lsatenstein]

Should have rehearsed his demo, or video recorded it.

Life's embarassing moments.

Obligatory

[Neo-Rio-101]

Dear aunt, lets set so double the killer delete select all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh.. why did you link to that? I was more pissed off by that ass reporter than the demo.

Consequences of laying off Windows QA staff

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you mean that letting Terry Myerson obliterate the entire Windows QA org in the 2014 Microsoft layoffs might actually have consequences for quality? I'm shocked; absolutely shocked, I tell you.

Hmmm..

[cnaumann]

"Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all"

Show me to buy milk at this opportunity

[bobthesungeek76036]

I mean it was a Salesforce.com audience...

What he should have asked...

[PRMan]

"How do we stop screwing up the Windows 10 release?!"

Re:What he should have asked...

[CAOgdin]

AMEN! This is the most cogent response in this entire thread!!!

Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

No? Pfff...amateur! Developers developers developers developers!!!

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. These days Microsoft treats us white people like shit even if we are developers. Microsoft wouldn't give me a full day off after my three year old son died from a congenital heart defect. I had to go back to work after the funeral.

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I'm white Microsoft wouldn't even let me off of work early after my wife died. You are correct and your experience is not uncommon. My wife's funeral was delayed for two hours until 5:30pm when I could get there after work.

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

For me the straw that broke the camel's back was when's fiancée died from a stroke, buty boss wouldn't let me leave work early.

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[MrNaz]

Yea? Well when I was working at Microsoft they wouldn't allow me to attend a funeral, even though I WAS THE ONE THAT DIED! That's why I'm still here posting.

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vacation time was ultimately why I left Microsoft. I wasn't allowed to take a single day off in a three year period, but all of my Indian coworkers were allowed to take two or more weeks off at a time every year. Yes, I understand that it takes a long time to travel to India and the airplane ticket is very expensive, but I need time off too.

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was only allowed a Friday off to make a long weekend after my father passed away. I'm from Boston so it ended-up taking longer than that to sell his how and settle all of his affairs. I got fired for that. I wouldn't have been too angry except for the fact that I had previously let several of my huys off for two weeks or longer to go back to India for funerals.

Re:Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft gave a damn about developers, they’d let their own take time off. Satya has done nothing to fix the vacation inequality problem here. At Microsoft what is most “at risk” are the most experienced employees. We’re tired of not being able to take time off. Other companies offer the same number of vacation days, but they actually allow you to take some of them. IIRC I got five weeks of vacation per year after I hit twelve years. I say IIRC, because I can’t actually take them so I’m unsure what I actually have. I’m sick of every year having to cover for coworkers from India that go home for two to three weeks per year, but I can’t take enough time off to go home to Orlando to justify the flight. I haven’t seen my nephews in over three years.

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not letting employees leave for funerL is scummy. My roommate's sister that was mentally challenged and he had taken care of her for nearly thirty years passed away, and like your story, the funeral was delayed until he was allowed to leave work.

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

> he had taken care of her for nearly thirty years passed away

Was she his dependent? If so, that was pretty crappy of them. I left Microsoft because of crap like that. While they let people from out of the country routinely take three or more weeks off, I was stuck only getting a single day here and there off approved. I wasn't able to take a single vacation out of town the entire time I worked there.

Re:Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft gave a damn about developers, they’d let their own take time off.

It's not just Microsoft. You're unfairly picking on them. I've worked at half a dozen large tech companies the past thirty-two years, and I've only had a single contiguous week off in that time. Most companies give Indian employees large chunks of time off. Again, you're unfairly picking on Microsoft for that. It sucks that to go see your family that you have to quit your job.

Re:Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

> vacation inequality

It's like that at every tech company. It's a bit unfair of you to pick on Microsoft for that. It's depressing every year to see my coworkers get two or more weeks off at a time every single year while the guys from the US have trouble getting a Friday or Monday off so they take a long weekend off. There's a reason every single one of my male coworkers that aren't from India have never been married. Having to work seven days a week and never being allowed to take a vacation doesn't give you much of a chance to ever meet someone.

Re:Did he throw a chair?

[Cederic]

Sorry but all these repeated comments on the same subject, when it's never been mentioned before, sound like astroturfing and agenda building.

Lots of ACs and no named people? Don't trust you. Feels like it's one person trying to push racial division.

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get the meme right, bro. "Because I'm white..."

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[MrNaz]

But I'm not white. I'm a brown skinned Muslim.

Re: Did he throw a chair?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am white, but I self identify as brownskin Muslim woman who is considering converting to Judaism after my sex change operation. Which box do I check? Is it legal for me to die?

Not expecting much...

[UnsignedInt32]

Considering how bad those telephone auto attendant gets me, even with presumably a limited set of word selections to recognize, this simply seems to be very difficult problem to solve for Microsoft or anyone. (I do have a bit of Japanese accent myself.)

The funny thing is, when I actually spoke the phrase "show me my most at-risk opportunities" into Google, it actually got me right second time. (I don't have Windows 10, let alone in English locale, so I can't test it with Cortana.) Albeit, I had to speak very slowly. Maybe Satya had to do the same.

Re:Not expecting much...

[Anonymous Coward]

What bugs me about telephone voice recognition systems isn't so much that they are terrible at voice recognition. Repeating yourself is just a minor annoyance. The more serious problem is that they essentially hide options are available.

To explain: when presented with the old monotonous "press 1 for blah, 2 for whop, 3 for bing etc" you know what your options are and can make an informed guess at which door is most relevant. And if you guess wrong you can try again with the next door - process of elimination. By contrast when presented with "say what you're looking for" you're working blind, trying to guess what key phrase the designer expects you to use for your particular query. Which is great if you guess right first up, torture if you don't. It's a guessing game, you're dealing with someone who is terrible at English, and the game is in no way fun.

Actually I just thought of the perfect analogy: it's like a modern UI paradigm where rather than have the options set out in nice discoverable menus, folders or similar you have to play "guess the gesture / guess what the cog/robot-head/wavey-icon/band-of-colour-at-bottom-of-screen means" game. And about as much fun.

Captcha: ornery. Love it!

Re:Not expecting much...

[Irate Engineer]

Actually I just thought of the perfect analogy: it's like a modern UI paradigm where rather than have the options set out in nice discoverable menus, folders or similar you have to play "guess the gesture / guess what the cog/robot-head/wavey-icon/band-of-colour-at-bottom-of-screen means" game. And about as much fun.

Oh, just like Windows 8 then?

Re:Not expecting much...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well either that "charming" OS or any number of very 2.0 webpages.
Or apple products.
Or some more recent versions of Ubuntu.
It seems to be very fashionable right now.

Cortana was too busy

[Anonymous Coward]

Cortana was too busy collecting every file on the computer and sending back to MS.

Re: Cortana was too busy

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no proof of that. John Thompson, current ruler of Microaoft, said that he isn't racist so he must not be. Even if you are if a black man says you isn't then you isn't.

Re: Cortana was too busy

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF?

Pop goes the hype bubble.

[dsmatthews9379]

Despite a few well run demos and some really cool eye candy AI is still basically just a room full of monkeys that can type very quickly.
Better add more monkeys.

Could have been worse

[WillAffleckUW]

It could have been worse, Cortona could have shown him a listing of qualified women of color who should be on his corporate board and in the top executive ranks, instead of his Brahmin-selected white males.

Re: Could have been worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Very funny. There are none.

Not cortana's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a fool would try to do a public demonstration of something he hasn't tried successfully multiple times before.

Re:Not cortana's fault

[Bite The Pillow]

No, it is Cortana's fault, because clearly it is intended to understand and is supposed to be ready for prime time.

It was probably tested many, many times in various rooms, maybe a car. But never in the real world, on a stage. And that's where Microsoft keeps fucking up. It works here, and here, why would it not work anywhere else?

The entire point of Microsoft's computing base is that it should work on a desktop, in a living room, in a board room, in a subway, and of course it isn't rated to be on a stage with microphones and feedback and audience noise and applause and shutter sounds because who would do that?

I guarantee it was tested many times, but not in that environment, And if in that environment, then when it was empty.

Everything Apple unveils has had a huge amount of preparation, so that it can't fail. And they tend not to do risky live demos, but the ones they did were well refined.

You assume a lack of practice, I propose a lack of preparation.

Re:Not cortana's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

The dipshit should have tested it on the machine he used, long before he did it for an audience.

Re:Not cortana's fault

[FranTaylor]

No, it is Cortana's fault,

yeah, it's the software's fault

it's not the people who wrote or debugged or tested the software

it's the software

Re:Not cortana's fault

[david_thornley]

Nothing is Cortana's fault. Cortana is not a moral agent.

Re:Not cortana's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

The similarity is uncanny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW7Rqwwth84

and?

[meglon]

And people wonder how "open the pod bay door" got turned into "please jettison me into space to eat hard vacuum." HAL obviously was a microsoft baby.

Nobody understands Indians

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have hired a Filipino CEO.

Bullshit Bingo?

[Irate Engineer]

Maybe they should teach Cortana how to play Bullshit Bingo so it at least have a humorous error during these sales meetings. It will just sit quietly for a while, and then in the middle of the meeting it will just shout "BULLSHIT!"

Re: Bullshit Bingo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Very funny. Microsoft has an Indian ruler so they have no sense of humor.

Classic PICNIC Error?

[Irate Engineer]

Problem In Chair Not In Computer?

Re:Classic PICNIC Error?

[Moridineas]

Naw, this is a classic PEBKAC error (Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair).

Re:Classic PICNIC Error?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't you mean....

problem is ceo, not in computer.

Picking him because you want...

[Anonymous Coward]

An Indian guy was a mistake. John Thompson should know that since he was hired for his race, and has done a hottific job.

Bing? Bing.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you rely on Bing. I'm sure Bing developers are going to get an ear full.

wery disapoin

[Anonymous Coward]

wery wery disapoining

This sounds familiar...

[dlenmn]

It's 2006 all over again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

No it's not!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sour milk is safe to consume, and is a valuable cooking ingredient because of its unique flavor.

Context

[Anonymous Coward]

Like humans, if Cortana could switch between (say) domestic and professional modes, and bias towards or away from different vocabulary sets for each context, it'd be good.

Re:Context

[FranTaylor]

Like humans, if Cortana could switch between (say) domestic and professional modes, and bias towards or away from different vocabulary sets for each context, it'd be good.

no, Cortana will not help you find a girl who will go out with you

Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete s

[citizenr]

Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all!

It worked perfectly

[FranTaylor]

He asked it to show him his most at-risk opportunities, and it showed him that he's risking his job on technology that doesn't work.

Re:It worked perfectly

[Anonymous Coward]

Very funny. The tech here is probably Microsoft's second biggest risk. The fact that Indians are allowed to take two+ weeks off contiguous every year while the Americans get crap, and are often denied, for trying to take a long weekend off is a bigger risk. Older more experienced developers are not putting up with that crap and are quitting. I'm quitting as soon as I can find another job.

Re:It worked perfectly

[Anonymous Coward]

often denied, for trying to take a long weekend off

As someone that moved to the other side of the country to work for Microsoft, that is my biggest complaint here. I hit the vacation accrual cap more than a decade ago and have since been losing vacation time. Yes, tickets to Asia are expensive and it takes a long time to get there so you want to take as much time off as you can, but my flight to Portland, Maine from Seattle is usually about $800 for Christmas and takes between ten to fourteen hours to get there. I would love to be allowed to take enough time off to get there and relax rather than having to hurry back to work.

Cortana's brain is a difference engine...

[Anonymous Coward]

it was reading vital signs, calculated that Satya had only an 11% chance of survival, while the milk had a 45% chance. It chose to save the milk.

Simulation of native operation shows divergence

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear sirs,

Whichever engineer told you it was a good idea to put unescaped content and control data on the same interface channel should probably be electrocuted, NAT pinned, or at least SQL injected.

Yours,
People who understand systems.

Nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Cortana should have answered; "42."

Never Ask a Question You Don't Know Answer To

[theodp]

The OJ Simpson Trial: Drama of the Century: I remember watching the gloves in the courtroom and thinking to myself, "He's not going to ask O.J. to put on the glove." That's too much of a risk. You never ask a question in a courtroom, much less do a demonstration where you don't know what the outcomes is. And it was like a slow motion disaster movie for the prosecution as O.J. milk the moment for all it was worth and pretended to try on those gloves.

Re:Never Ask a Question You Don't Know Answer To

[david_thornley]

When my son was very young, he taught me never to ask a question if I wasn't prepared for any possible answer.

For Microsoft, their most experienced...

[Anonymous Coward]

Developers are their biggest risk. They let the new Indian guys use all of their vacation time, including two or more weeks at a time, but the older Americans get crap for taking any time off. I almost got fired for going back home to Virgina after my mother passed away. There were a lot of things I had to handle. The bad thing is that while FMLA gives you 12 weeks off, you will get a bad review and probably be fired for taking it.

Cortana's answer was correct.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cortana's answer showed in very clear terms that Cortana itself was the most at-risk opportunity.
Cortana's AI seems to be very good, it combined ironic and absurdist humour.

please explain this to me

[someone1234]

1. was this a temporary glitch ?
2. are these CEO's so accustomed to success and trust their subordinates, that they don't feel the need of a private test/rehearsal ?
3. are they completely detached from reality?

Re:please explain this to me

[Anonymous Coward]

1. No
2. Yes
3. Yes

Now then.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it have this attention if it had worked????

Interesting

[Thraxy]

but it can definitely find milk, right? Guys? Right?

And that ...

[YoungManKlaus]

is why apple fakes all their presentations

Plz help URGENT kind guru's

[Hognoxious]

I would respond "could you ask the question a different way", as it doesn't even parse.

Are you saying that if you were having one doubt about the needful you'd revert the same?

Cortana

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It's proof that he's an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's news because it's proof that he's an idiot. Who, with even half a brain, would demonstrate something before a group without having first tested it in private? And also proof that an idiot can become a CEO, so again news.

Nothing unexpected here

[Anonymous Coward]

Cortana is nowhere near the top in the speech recognition and AI department, but the truth is that these so-called "personal digital assistants" are good for parties, grins and giggles, and little else. Their speech recognition capabilities, albeit much better than these things were ten years, are still barely usable - as Nadella so aptly, if unwittingly, demonstrated. As for their underlying intelligence, almost none, as has been the norm in the AI field for the last 50 years. I have been trying to get both Google Now and Hound to dial numbers using a different dialer (Hangouts) instead of the default one, and that very simple request has proven to be beyond their meagre capabilities. These gimmicks the Star Trek computer they ain't, and methinks it will be a long, long time before they attain a comparable level of usefulness.

Thank you! Come again!!

[cayenne8]

Perhaps he confused Cortana because he finished the question with

Thank you!! Come again.....!!

;)

Re: Thank you! Come again!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You know...that's fucked up. I still laughed my ass off though.

You know what they say. If it's funny, it's probably offensive.

In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Cortana development team is most at-risk now.

and I'm just sitting here waiting for...

[slashmydots]

And I'm just sitting here waiting for Europe to tear them a new ass for hard wiring Bing into the OS. Get ready for another billion dollar fine. As far as I know, you cannot use Google with Cortana even though it would be idiotically easy to pass it search strings.

ew live demos

[Anonymous Coward]

yuck

Response from the dev team

[GuB-42]

Sorry, this version of Cortana can only understand English.

Response is an easy one

[ebvwfbw]

Do the query, show Microsoft Windows.