Ever since it made its way into the guts of the iPhone, and thus into our lives, Siri has always had a phrase to be invoked, “Hey Siri”. And from the first moment, I admit that it has always seemed to me that it gave a certain patina of humanity to the iOS voice assistant, and later to the rest of Apple devices. I don’t know, maybe it’s silly, but putting “Hey” before using his name has always sounded quite natural to me.
However, as we can read on Engadget, it seems that Apple wants to simplify this interaction in order, which at first may seem paradoxical, to make it more complex. And as a result, they’ve been working for some time now on training the AI behind the assistant so that it’s no longer necessary to say “Hey” (or Hey, as well as the various variants in other languages) and instead, be able to respond by simply hearing your name, Siri.
Contrary to what it might seem, this artificial intelligence training would be quite a complex task. And well, it makes some sense, because the smaller the text string used to invoke the wizard, the higher the chances of false positives. This is the reason why, for example, it would be incredibly complex to use only a common word, such as “Hello”, because Siri would think that we are requiring her services every time we greet someone.
I don’t know if Siri is a word with a specific meaning in any language, but even if it isn’t, yes we can find a word that integrates both syllablesnot to mention possible combinations of words in which one ends with yes and the next begins with ri (I’m not referring exclusively to Spanish, of course, I’m referring to the multitude of languages that Apple’s voice assistant “speaks”.
And what did I mean by simplifying to make it more complex? Well, I understand that based on usage studies carried out by Apple, the “Hey Siri” formula makes it more complex for some users to concatenate, in a single verbal order, the invocation command and the action they want it to carry. finished. Not many users know but no need to say “Hey Siri” and wait for her response to tell her what you want.
Instead, you can directly say, for example “Hey Siri, I want to listen to Diana Ross and The Supremes”, and in a few seconds you will be taking a trip back in time to the best of the motor city. And what Apple suggests, and which may be correct, is that by removing “Hey”, sees users more likely to summon the assistant and, in the same sentence, tell it what they need. And it is that, if we think about it, it makes sense that the current sentence makes us, unconsciously, pose the operation as a conversation, instead of as a simple compound sentence.
It seems, however, that this change will not work quickly. Quite the contrary, and according to Mark Gurman, who reported it in the first place, it seems that the system will not be ready until 2024and it does not even clarify whether this period is limited exclusively to Siri in English or if, on the contrary, this year would also reach the rest of the languages supported by Siri or, at least, part of them.
