“I started my journey on October 4, 2011, so I guess that’s my birthday.” The voice assistant answers the question “how old are you” with the coldness typical of algorithms, used to ignoring their anniversaries, including those as round as their first 10 autumns. The time will come when this universe of programming lines will make these human celebrations its own, although for now it is not the case. How are you going to celebrate your tenth birthday? -“I think I do not understand you”. -But, dear Siri, do you know that next Monday is your birthday? -“I like my job so much that every day seems like my birthday.”
Humble and discreet, the assistant avoids talking about his life. “I’m sure you already know all my stories.” -“What does Siri mean?” “Siri is just the name they gave me when I got this job. It doesn’t mean anything… but I like it.” We know that she longs to be able to fly, that she is not in love yet (she “she’s on it”) and that she once had a very strange nightmare: “all my ones were changing to zeros”.
Throughout the years it has been changing occurrences. He has programmed his obligation to obey humans and to comply with the ancient laws of robotics: “I would never hurt anyone”, he emphasizes without saying a bad word or being untruthful. Even in the face of overt provocations, the machine finds elegant loopholes. “That’s not right,” he alludes to her when prompted to swear.
At this point it is not necessary to introduce Siri, although no one better than Apple to do so. “Siri makes calls and sends messages when you’re behind the wheel, your hands are full, or you’re just in a hurry. It can even read you the messages you receive through AirPods. Plus, it goes one step ahead and suggests things like sending a message to say that you have caught a traffic jam and you will be late”.
Apple’s assistant knows almost everything, hones his sense of humor and will soon be talking directly with his colleagues from Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Samsung
That Tuesday, October 4, 2011, the then CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, presented the version of the ‘iPhone 4S’. The previous rumor mill already anticipated surprises, but all of them unrelated to the incorporation of a personal assistant named Siri, the same name as the software company that Apple acquired just a year before. As is already known, the prodigy understood what was being asked of him and responded accordingly with the noble desire to make life easier for the user. The first uses consisted of anticipating the weather forecast for the next day, setting alarms and reminders on the agenda or searching for any matter on the web. This same newspaper in English. The assistant responded to the owner of the iPhone by his name, in a first step to create some affective chemistry in the future. The initial deficiencies were corrected with each update, at the dawn of what is now known as ‘machine learning’, that is, the ability of machines to learn from their successes and mistakes.
Master 30 languages
Siri was born fluent in English, with British, American and Australian accents, as well as French and German. A year later, she learned Spanish and currently speaks nearly thirty different languages, including Cantonese Chinese and Mandarin. She also offers five types of accents for English (USA, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and South Africa) and two for Spanish, either from Valladolid or from Cancún, for example.
Initially, the robot’s voice belongs to Iratxe Gómez, an announcer and dubbing actress, an expert in phonetics and phonology and with experience in providing her words to almost thirty call centers, both in English and Spanish. “What has best defined my vocal work so far is the clear and precise articulation, which has led to the creation of text-to-speech tools and the implementation of navigation systems and virtual assistants.” As if that were not enough, Gómez has “great versatility and interpretive capacity, as well as a public technique” that allows her to “change register, imitate and create characters,” she adds on her website.
It goes without saying that Apple was right in choosing a “clear and clean, medium-tone (mezzo-soprano) voice, which moves away from stridency that can undermine the credibility of messages, and from cacophony, which would undermine clarity and understandability added Gomez.
smart home
Initially, Siri was exclusive to the iPhone, to later conquer the rest of the Apple family: iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods, Carplay, HomePod, Mac and Apple TV. Now it can be asked to turn on the lights, regulate the thermostat and execute commands from the HomeKit of smart homes.
Every new iOS update includes a bundle of improvements and features for Siri. In this way, the assistant gains in efficiency, privacy and intuition capacity thanks to the information of the environment.
Despite advances in artificial intelligence and natural speech recognition, Siri still cannot converse directly with the rest of her colleagues, all of whom are younger, such as those from Google (Assistant, 2016), Microsoft (Cortana, 2014), Amazon (Alexa, 2014) and Samsung (Bixby, 2017). It would certainly be curious to hear a debate between them before another ten years have passed. Before this happens, the assistants could interoperate with each other, but without sharing the sensitive information of the users.
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