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Comment on How Apple’s Siri Became One Autistic Boy's B.F.Fparent

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Because the TV show has no bugs, no "I'm sorry, I didn't understand why you said, rephrase" in the middle of your rant against whatever, and creates the same experience for everyone who watches it, so that people can discuss amongst themselves.

Slightly OT, but I'd be tempted to argue TV Shows can and do have bugs; plot holes, bad acting, continuity errors et al. They can be quite jarring.

That's a good point. At least they have less bugs than Siri.

Nevermind that for much of the history of TV, and still today, it randomly cuts out?

Heck, I sometimes say "I don't understand, can you explain?" Why would people be less tolerant of that from a robot than from me?

Not in the middle of a rant, or while you are professing your love for someone. In neutral discourse, sure that's expected.

You can even not speak the same language, humans can understand each other by other means like body language and cultural cues. It's not something you can replicate in a machine unless you really understand how it works. Unless you are saying that human behaviour is completely understood...

Not in the middle of a rant, or while you are professing your love for someone.

It's possible to detect mode of speech even without visual cues. Factors such as pitch dynamics, speed of talk, etc. can be accounted for. Software can be trained to be even more sensitive to these signals than we are.

Of course, the problem is that this varies somewhat among different people. Therefore, part of AI training would need to happen with actual customer after purchase. There're a lot of unknowns in this process from manufacturer's point of view, so I can understand why it's not happening yet.

Once a “special” mode of speech is detected, though, it's simple to avoid canned “Please rephrase” response in case of unclear voice input. Instead the software would change its own mode of speech appropriately, and then evade the direct reply—humans do this all the time in real-life communication.

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