Siri chaos: Why Apple can't get its better voice assistant right
Apple had to postpone its smarter Siri for a year and Apple Intelligence is not getting off the ground elsewhere either. An article now reveals the background.
Apple's Siri: Available since 2011, but still not perfect.
(Image: Koshiro K / Shutterstock)
After the release of ChatGPT in 2022, Apple is said to have initially not believed that chatbots would provide users with sufficient added value. The assessment is said to have come from the very top – Head of AI John Giannandrea –, reports IT magazine The Information in a lengthy article on Apple's problems with AI and the delayed, improved Siri. There have reportedly been several changes of direction in the type of language models Apple is building, delaying the project and causing resentment among developers. There was allegedly a lack of leadership and creative power, and the Siri teams were not willing to take enough risks.
Aimless AI squad?
Apple finally agreed on two models – "Mini Mouse" for on-device AI on the iPhone and "Mighty Mouse" for a server version. After that, however, there was a return to a uniform cloud model, until the two were split again. The unclear strategy also led to employees leaving.
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The problem was also at the top, which led to the group being dubbed internally as "AIMLess" (for AI and ML and the English word "aimless"). Siri was long regarded as a "hot potato". Giannandrea initially thought that the Siri problems could be solved with better training and web scraping. The team itself also took care of only small improvements, such as the removal of the "Hey" from "Hey Siri" to a simple "Siri" as a watchword.
Demo in WWDC video not real
Some of the features in the Siri demo in the WWDC 2024 video are said not to have been real. These included, for example, access to emails to retrieve real-time information for flights or messages about meal plans from iMessage messages.
The demo was even a surprise for the team members. It is now clear that the function will not be available until next year. Only the new Siri design was active on test devices, but not the real, improved AI. Now, under new management, everything is set to improve. A new Siri manager, Mike Rockwell, has been appointed, who has already brought out the Vision Pro, although it was a completely new product for Apple.
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