Siri

[DKleinecke]

I am very interested in how Siri (Apple's voice input system) works. I
am indifferent to its voice recognition capability - what interests me
is its understanding capability. I have been unable to find any
complete description of what and how it understands.

I want to know whether any advance has actually been achieved since
the methods used in interactive fiction were developed in the early
1990's. Let's call these methods the old methods. The question is are
there any new ones.

The old methods are what I would call slot grammars. In interactive
fiction only imperative sentences (commands) are considered. Hence
every command begins with a verb. The slots come in when you try to
expand the verb to understand the rest of the sentence.

For example - one sentence pattern would be
pick up ______
and the understanding mechanism would observe the required (in this
pattern) word 'up' and then put the rest of the sentence into the
slot. Then it must determine what the noun phrase (assumed to filling
the slot) actually indicated. There might also be a pattern
pick _________
where there is also a slot but the two slots are have different
semantics. For example

[DKleinecke]

That was interrupted - I continue

pick up the apples
pick the apples

fill the slot the same way but have different meanings.

I could elaborate further - but that's the core idea. This old
methodology works for games and such extent, perhaps with some
difficulty, to any English statement. The hard part, of course, is
deciding what the slot filler means.

I have been unable to locate any description of Siri that indicates
any advance over the old techniques although it seems to be supported
by a much bigger database than an interactive fiction. Can anybody
help me ?

[Peter T. Daniels]

> help me ?-

In Harry Shearer's radio program *Le Show* last week, he attempted to
interact with his Siri in the way Zooey Dechamel and Samuel L. Jackson
do in the TV commercials. Its responses were not as they are depicted
in the ads.

He also tried to converse with it, asking it things like whether it
liked Zooey or Samuel better. After very long pauses, it came up with
fairly noncommittal and inappropriate responses.

The bits are at the beginning and near the end of the hour-long show.
Presumably it has its own website with archives, and you can probably
find it via KCRW in Santa Monica and via wnyc.org.

[DKleinecke]

It does not surprise me that it has difficulties.

The old technology not only was "optimized" for a niche purpose but it
has a number of obvious limitations. It does work, however, a least
for the small group of people who are interested in interactive
fiction. So far as I know, interactive fiction is the only example of
an actual practical use of computer linguistic AI. I have read a
number of articles "explaining" Siri and tested all the examples
against the old techniques. Some of them showed that Siri was using a
data base much larger than any fiction has ever used. And Siri has
some ability to understand statements other than imperatives - however
all the examples I have seen are easy transforms of imperatives.

I observe that transformational grammar in the original Chomsky sense
(kernel sentences and so on - as in Syntactic Structures) was used as
the methodology of several machine understanding systems forty years
ago and seemed promising. But I know of no real-world uses of this
technique beyond a few very simple steps in the traditional slot
grammars. For example "Take the pen and the pencil" is transformed
into "Take the pen. Take the pencil".

I believe Siri was supported by the govenment for several years before
Apple bought it. Some at least of their work should be public
knowledge - but I have found none.

[Harlan Messinger]

On 5/23/2012 11:26 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> In Harry Shearer's radio program *Le Show* last week, he attempted to
> interact with his Siri in the way Zooey Dechamel

Is she the daughter of Josh Duhamel and Zooey Deschanel?

[Peter T. Daniels]

No idea. She's the "star" of one of this season's more ridiculous
sitcoms about stupid manipulative young women, *New Girl*. And the
sister of the star of *Bones*, whose character is a pathologist
depicted as autistic but I suspect that's more due to the limitations
of her acting abilities than a deliberate artistic choice.

Speaking of limited acting abilities, Patrick Wilson of this season's
*A Gifted Man* was well cast as a surgeon, since surgeons are
notoriously antisocial and unsympathetic people -- Wilson is a
Broadway dancer (he was great in *The Full Monty*), but no actor (he
was one of many reasons for the failure of the Cameron Macintosh/
Trevor Nunn *Oklahoma!* a few seasons ago).

[Harlan Messinger]

On 5/25/2012 8:11 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On May 25, 6:44 am, Harlan Messinger<h.rem...@gavelcade.com> wrote:
>> On 5/23/2012 11:26 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>> In Harry Shearer's radio program *Le Show* last week, he attempted to
>>> interact with his Siri in the way Zooey Dechamel
>>
>> Is she the daughter of Josh Duhamel and Zooey Deschanel?
>
> No idea. She's the "star" of one of this season's more ridiculous
> sitcoms about stupid manipulative young women, *New Girl*.

That's Zooey Deschanel.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Yet somehow you understood who I meant.

Ain't spelling wonderful?

[Harlan Messinger]

Indeed I did, Pieter T. Damyelz.

>
> Ain't spelling wonderful?

[Peter T. Daniels]

> > Ain't spelling wonderful?-

Thank you, Harlen Messenger.

(In Chicago I worked with a Harlen. I have never, however, encountered
a name Damyelz.)

[Tak To]

On 5/25/2012 8:11 AM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> On May 25, 6:44 am, Harlan Messinger <h.rem...@gavelcade.com> wrote:
>> On 5/23/2012 11:26 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>> In Harry Shearer's radio program *Le Show* last week, he attempted to
>>> interact with his Siri in the way Zooey Dechamel
>>
>> Is she the daughter of Josh Duhamel and Zooey Deschanel?
>
> No idea. She's the "star" of one of this season's more ridiculous
> sitcoms about stupid manipulative young women, *New Girl*. And the
> sister of the star of *Bones*, whose character is a pathologist

forensic anthropologist (hence the name of the show)

> depicted as autistic

Supposedly based on a real life person with Asperger
syndrome, though the character in the show has never
shown any symptoms of such. She is depicted as having
little social skills though.

> depicted as autistic but I suspect that's more due to the limitations
> of her acting abilities than a deliberate artistic choice.
>
> Speaking of limited acting abilities, Patrick Wilson of this season's
> *A Gifted Man* was well cast as a surgeon, since surgeons are
> notoriously antisocial and unsympathetic people -- Wilson is a
> Broadway dancer (he was great in *The Full Monty*), but no actor (he
> was one of many reasons for the failure of the Cameron Macintosh/
> Trevor Nunn *Oklahoma!* a few seasons ago).

I think Patrick Wilson is not bad in Lakeview Terrace,
Hard Candy, or The Ledge. In any case, I find it very
difficult to assess acting skill without know the
actor or actress in person.

Tak
--
----------------------------------------------------------------+-----
Tak To ta...@alum.mit.eduxx
--------------------------------------------------------------------^^
[taode takto ~{LU5B~}] NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr

[Peter T. Daniels]

Well, I've only seen him in three things (two of them on a Broadway
stage, one a TV series), and you've evidently also seen him in three
things (movies?). Unless he was playing basically the same character
-- his own persona, a la Cary Grant, say, in all of them -- you should
have a sense of his range.

Compare, e.g., Jimmy Stewart, who is always "himself" but also always
believable, whether he's Mr. Smith, or Elwood P. Dowd, or George
whatsizname in that movie that was never "popular" until its copyright
lapsed and it got shown on TV 50 times every December.

On the Tonys last night, they showed the actress portraying Judy
Garland in a bioplay this season -- she did two signature songs, and
she did not in any way "inhabit" Garland, the way, say, Meryl Streep
or Helen Mirren or Colin Firth "inhabits" the real people they
portray; rather, she seemed to base her performance on drag queens'
interpretations of Judy Garland.