Siri is not the simple, delightful digital assistant that Apple introduced with the iPhone 4s in 2011. Siri 2024, albeit always AI-based, is significantly wiser than it was back then, when I asked it simple inquiries (“Where are the pumpkins?”) and had it perform simple chores, like as meeting scheduling.
Siri has undergone over a decade of brain transplants to make it a better interlocutor and digital companion, but Apple has never attempted to make Siri a genuine ChatBot, which was OK until the world shifted early last year.
Apple no longer has the luxury of avoiding a category while others stumble and fall. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unquestionably the most important technological innovation of this century, and while not everyone is pleased with how ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Windows CoPilot work, their proclivity for hallucinations and plagiarism does little to impede their steady progress. We will never turn back the clock and abandon generative AI.
What’s in an AI’s name?
Microsoft felt comfortable dumping “Bing Chat” in favor of CoPilot because Bing still accounts for less than 4% of the worldwide search market. Nobody misses the question, “Did you ask Bing Chat?” Nobody knows what Samsung’s Galaxy AI implies for its Bixby digital assistant (a poor cousin to Siri), but I doubt anyone would object if Samsung replaced the Bixby button with a Galaxy AI button on the future, highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S24 series.
For Apple, however, I believe there is too much brand equity to remove the Siri moniker. It’s a good moniker (which the late Steve Jobs, who died a day after its launch, undoubtedly helped define), and the iconography is robust and smart-looking. Have you recently used your iPhone’s Siri button? The animation on iOS 17 is quite future, and it seems appropriate for an upcoming Generative AI brain transplant.
My belief was supported by a recent news item claiming that Apple’s Generative AI work on its Ajax language model is progressing well, perhaps resulting in a Siri that handles conversation and personalization significantly better than the current version.
Still, this “leak” provides little specifics and does not corroborate my anticipation that Apple would take the hard step and make the Generative AI leap that will propel Siri into the dynamic arena occupied by ChatGPT, Bard, and LLMs such as Google’s Gemini and Meta’s Llama 2.
Apple has the power
The reality is that if Apple gives Siri a truly powerful LLM (backed by an even more powerful A18 Pro CPU that will handle on-board ML and fit ample tokenized data stores inside) and allows it to connect to all of Apple’s extensive ecosystem, Siri will be able to do things most chatbots can only dream of.
For example, it may finally fix the mess that is Apple Home Kit, allowing for better control and setup of every linked smart device in an Apple-based smart home. Even better, a lot of the job could be done with just your voice.
And who knows what’s possible with an incredibly smart Siri inside your greatest iPhone? It will help you maximize and use your phone in ways you never imagined possible. A Generative AI-based Siri provides a clear top-to-bottom benefit.
By the way, none of this would violate Apple’s unbreakable privacy promise if all Siri communications were encrypted from beginning to end. This manner, we could use Siri in Apple Car to complete a number of things at our home before we arrived. There are no fears about someone getting into the communication stream and learning about our smart homes or our lifestyles.
Realizing the potential
With this ultimate brain transplant, Siri would become the conversationalist we’ve always wanted it to be. To this day, most of my “conversations” with Siri conclude in two sentences, and it prefers to direct me to a web page result rather than engage in the back and forth required to find out what I want.
Apple has a massive opportunity here, but I’m concerned that full-scale Generative AI based on data-hungry LLM is too risky and might expose company to privacy concerns or even criticism of its machine learning models. People will want to know how Apple taught Ajax and Siri, as well as the source of the data. Is it based on all of our billions of iPhone behaviors (anonymized, of course), or did Apple pull training data from an artisanal well?
I recommend that Apple reject those fears and face whatever arises. It is time for Apple to genuinely join the AI competition. Do it at WWDC 2024 and set the world ablaze. We are ready for it.
