Siri was incredibly cool when it first came on the iPhone 4s out back in 2011 but times have changed and our expectations are much higher for what a digital personal assistant can do for us. Wired has a huge in-depth new report on a startup called Viv Labs, which was cofounded by three engineers who originally worked on Siri and who are now building a “radical new AI” that will make Siri look positively primitive by comparison.
When Apple announced the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011, the headlines were not about its speedy A5 chip or improved camera. Instead they focused on an unusual new feature: an intelligent assistant, dubbed Siri. At first Siri, endowed with a female voice, seemed almost human in the way she understood what you said to her and responded, an advance in artificial intelligence that seemed to place us on a fast track to the Singularity. She was brilliant at fulfilling certain requests, like “Can you set the alarm for 6:30?” or “Call Diane’s mobile phone.” And she had a personality: If you asked her if there was a God, she would demur with deft wisdom. “My policy is the separation of spirit and silicon,” she’d say.
