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Does Siri have a degenerative brain disease?

M

mossme89

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 2, 2009
596
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Voice dictation has somehow gotten worse. It used to be sort of just mediocre, but now it’s gotten really bad. It’s gotten to the point where it’s no longer usable regular things. So I have to ask, does Siri have a degenerative brain disease?

I mean it’s pretty ridiculous how bad it is compared to Google. I end up just paying a subscription for Dragon new wants because it is so much better and has an incredible accuracy compared to Siri what’s weird about Siri is that if it doesn’t know what word you are saying, it will just make up a random word.

What do y’all use? Also, has Siri actually gotten worse?
 
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mossme89 said:
Voice dictation has somehow gotten worse. It used to be sort of just mediocre, but now it’s gotten really bad. It’s gotten to the point where it’s no longer usable regular things. So I have to ask, does Siri have a degenerative brain disease?

I mean it’s pretty ridiculous how bad it is compared to Google. I end up just paying a subscription for Dragon new wants because it is so much better and has an incredible accuracy compared to Siri what’s weird about Siri is that if it doesn’t know what word you are saying, it will just make up a random word.

What do y’all use? Also, has Siri actually gotten worse?
Click to expand...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/siri-sucks-in-ios-11.2098790/
 
Rampancy.

It's called Rampancy.

Actually - I guess I am in the minority here; I never noticed anything different. I only use Siri in the car or while riding my motorcycle and it still works as it always did? (shrug!)
 
iop said:
Meanwhile, Google Assistant is going to be able to book appointments soon:


https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/duplex-ai-system-for-natural-conversation.html?m=1

Siri is total s h i t in comparison. Apple had a serious competitive advantage when they first introduced Siri, yet over the years they've completely lost it. :(
Click to expand...

Well Google has access to TB of personal data that Apple doesn’t because of the latter’s stronger privacy policy but most people don’t seem to care about that I guess.
 
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decafjava said:
Well Google has access to TB of personal data that Apple doesn’t because of the latter’s stronger privacy policy but most people don’t seem to care about that I guess.
Click to expand...
Or Apple does, but they just haven't been using it.
 
mossme89 said:
Voice dictation has somehow gotten worse. It used to be sort of just mediocre, but now it’s gotten really bad. It’s gotten to the point where it’s no longer usable regular things. So I have to ask, does Siri have a degenerative brain disease?

I mean it’s pretty ridiculous how bad it is compared to Google. I end up just paying a subscription for Dragon new wants because it is so much better and has an incredible accuracy compared to Siri what’s weird about Siri is that if it doesn’t know what word you are saying, it will just make up a random word.

What do y’all use? Also, has Siri actually gotten worse?
Click to expand...
Siri and voice dictation works amazingly .. 95% of the time it’s correctly found a word... sometimes due to pronounciation differences it’s different... a few days back, I tried to have with dictation with a little tone and pitch and speed change of my voice, and it caught my fast speech and gave out almost all words correctly...

It gets better the more you use it.. if you think it’s getting worse, turn off the Siri and voice dictation. That will clear your data available. Re - toggle it.. and start afresh...
 
I'd say it's mediocre on recognition and always has been. On actually processing data on the other hand, it's become horribly stupid.

I rarely use it anymore, but this past weekend I wanted to know what time costco closed, so I asked her for directions because the list of possible locations has store hours on it. There was a costco within sight of where I was at the time, but instead she brought up every costco GAS STATION within 30 miles and showed me the gas station hours which are different from the store hours. I tried the query several times in various ways and could only get the list of gas stations. I had to give up and use google in the web browser.
 
decafjava said:
Well Google has access to TB of personal data that Apple doesn’t because of the latter’s stronger privacy policy but most people don’t seem to care about that I guess.
Click to expand...
It's true Apple doesn't have as much data, but even with what they have, Siri could have been improved significantly. Apple has access to all Siri requests (anonymously), and every failed request could be used to add new features. In those cases where there is not enough training data, Apple could create an opt-in program for expanded data collection in exchange for perks like itunes credits.
 
mossme89 said:
Voice dictation has somehow gotten worse. It used to be sort of just mediocre, but now it’s gotten really bad. It’s gotten to the point where it’s no longer usable regular things. So I have to ask, does Siri have a degenerative brain disease?

I mean it’s pretty ridiculous how bad it is compared to Google. I end up just paying a subscription for Dragon new wants because it is so much better and has an incredible accuracy compared to Siri what’s weird about Siri is that if it doesn’t know what word you are saying, it will just make up a random word.

What do y’all use? Also, has Siri actually gotten worse?
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1526589916][/doublepost]I have an i6 and with the latest OS11. Siri is the worst I have ever seen. Seems every software update it gets worse. Can't spell, puts words in a talk text totally different that what you said, Will not follow commands.
 
I don't know what the fuss is about. I use Siri in Flemish (my native tongue) on my iPhone and American on the HomePod, and both do what I want correctly 90+% of the time...

Only time she doesn't work good is when I'm driving on the highway and I'm pretty sure it's because of all the background noise. iPhone is just connected via bluetooth and Siri has to fake a phonecall to work with my car.

Stuff I do with Siri:
- let her read iMessages/Whatsapps and reply to them
- ask her about the weather
- ask to play music (at random and certain playslists)
- let her do basic calculations, mostly in stores: how much is 24,99 minus 30% and stuff like that
- let her add tasks to Things 3 (To Do-list app I bought)
- let her start the navigation home, or one of my contacts
...

Don't know what all these superior assistants (Alexa, etc) can do that is so revolutionary, but Siri works fine for me. Only thing missing is better integration with other devices and HomeKit. I'd love to be able to ask my HomePod to start up Netflix on the Apple TV or ask where my iPhone is (and make it beep like you can with an Apple Watch)
 
mossme89 said:
Voice dictation has somehow gotten worse. It used to be sort of just mediocre, but now it’s gotten really bad. It’s gotten to the point where it’s no longer usable regular things. So I have to ask, does Siri have a degenerative brain disease?

I mean it’s pretty ridiculous how bad it is compared to Google. I end up just paying a subscription for Dragon new wants because it is so much better and has an incredible accuracy compared to Siri what’s weird about Siri is that if it doesn’t know what word you are saying, it will just make up a random word.

What do y’all use? Also, has Siri actually gotten worse?
Click to expand...
Being as Siri is a robot, without an actual brain, I'm voting no. Maybe crappier programming though...
 
In the Halo series of games, Cortana's AI started to break down. They called it "rampancy", but I have no idea if this is a real thing for actual machine learning AI. I don't think Siri is smart enough to go through rampancy though, lol. I have noticed lately that she has been mishearing things in a way that interprets them really strangely. Maybe they have upgraded her with more advanced ML but it's just really crappy because Apple has second-rate AI engineers.

THAT REMINDS ME—she went absolutely crazy a few weeks ago. Couldn't get a screenshot because it wasn't that she was spelling things out wrong, but that she was reading things like a crazy person. When I was getting directions around KC I would ask for directions to a place in a certain city and she would butcher it. But these are cities that I know she has read fine before. Nothing crazy either. I think one of them was "Overland Park" and she read it like "Quatlzecue namahanabay". It was complete gibberish! But the text said "Overland Park." I tried it again when my wife got back in the car as we were driving around doing a lot of stuff for a friend's wedding and she did it again consistently making the same sound. Wish I could have gotten an audio recording. I tried another city—again not a complicated name—and she went ham on it again.

Other examples include a few weeks ago I asked her showtimes for Avengers Infinity War and she interpreted that as "avengers it" and couldn't find any movies. It wasn't because she cut off too early either—she correctly heard the theater name after that. And before that, when Siri had those new jokes added and that story was on MacRumors I tried it. One of the jokes was a knock knock joke. I said "Who's there?" and she heard "Is there" and said "You were saying…". I said "Who is there" and she picked up where she left off and said "Dwayne." I said "Dwayne who?" but she heard "Play in Hell" and started playing "In Hell by Twiztid" which is a song I've never heard before from a band I've never listened to and would never be in my recommendations. So maybe OP is right and she's experiencing rampancy…which is pretty said because didn't they only give her contextual awareness last year and it doesn't even work very well?
 
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