Siri Inventors Create Viv, Aim To Perfect, Personalize Conversational Search
- by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, May 6, 2016
The creators of Apple Siri say they have made something better. They're calling it Viv. Siri provides a voice
virtual assistant for Apple iOS devices. Viv aims to further personalize the assistance through artificial intelligence.
The inventors -- Dag Kittlaus, and Adam Cheyer, two former Apple employees -- and Siri co-founders plan to release the AI next week.
Powered by artificial intelligence, Viv can reportedly process and answer more advanced queries than Siri, with multilayered questions such as "What's the weather near Disneyland."
It can reportedly process an unprecedented volumes of data, to become the portal through which billions of people connect to services and businesses on the Internet -- if the AI becomes the tool integrated into other tools.
In this world, users will have the ability to "order a taxi, make a restaurant reservation and buy movie tickets in one long unbroken conversation," according to The Washington Post.
Viv is one example of a slew of emerging technology that will take search into a variety of software and inanimate objects, removing the need for a keyboard, and in some instances, the need for an application.
Microsoft proved this trend through the integration of Cortana in a variety of platforms, such as Amazon Echo. When Alexa cannot find the correct answer on its own, she turns to search powered by Bing to find the answers. Microsoft also has experimented with AI chat bots, even going as far a building out a developers' network and tools.
Google also wants to try to make conversational AI technology more personal by feeding the technology 2,865 romance novels, including titles such as Fatal Desire, Jacked Up and Unconditional Love. Following the test, the AI began writing sentences similar to those in the stories.
The predictable themes and plot lines, as well as the colorful and varied vocabulary, provide a teaching tool.
Similar to Amazon's acquisition several years ago of Evi, an AI platform developed by William Tunstall-Pedoe, WaPo reports that Google and Facebook have made offers to buy Viv, according to people familiar with the matter. It turns out that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has invested in Viv through the firm Iconiq Capital.
The smarter the code becomes the dumber people become. In a not too distant future this Ai will become indistinguishable from from real intelligence. Not because it is better, but because we will have become too stupid to know the difference.
I have the same fear, Larry, but have seen no useful data that would directly link AI with cognitive decline.
No doubt mental-inequality is far a greater problem than the income-inequality that is shot a hot topic of conversation. There is an observable inverse correlation between mental acuity and tv viewing. Over the last 35 years, the per capita media consumption has risen from 3.5 hours per day to 8.
No need to oxygen starve fetuses a la Brave New World to create a drone class. The general population has made their own brain deadening choice.