Earlier this year, the New York Times published a story explaining how Apple “lost the artificial intelligence race” against rivals like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing, and a new report from The Information suggests that the company once delves deeper into the stagnation of its groundbreaking virtual assistant, Siri.
NYT drew attention to the fact that the software was built on a cumbersome database that even took weeks to update with basic features and tried to show Siri’s technological shortcomings. As The Information reports, it targets the ongoing personnel issues that Siri development faces: “According to more than three dozen former Apple employees working in AI and machine learning groups, Apple’s attempts to improve Siri have resulted in “organizational dysfunction and “lack of ambition” and the software is now widely ridiculed by many at the company.”
Looking for an alternative to Siri
The Information reports that developers working on Apple’s VR headset are tired of Siri and are considering “developing alternative ways” to control the headset with voice technology.
There seems to be two reasons why Siri is surrounded by so much clutter. Apple struggled to retain employees who were crucial to the development of the program and lost many of them to Google.
The Information reports that people like Srinivasan Venkatachary, Steven Baker, and Anand Shukla have moved from Apple to Google because they better understand or at least are willing to adopt large language models (LLMs). It was alleged that Apple CEO Tim Cook tried to persuade these names to stay with the company, but it is also said that Google CEO Sundar Pichai managed to attract them to his own company by meeting them personally.
Unwillingness to take risks
The other related issue seems to be Apple’s reluctance to take risks with AI and Siri. The Information reports that Apple’s senior executives are concerned about seeing its software make headline-worthy blunders (as we’ve seen in ChatGPT and Bard in recent months) because of the company’s unspoilt public image.
Looking at the signs about the future of Siri, it is clear that Apple does not expect to introduce a revolutionary innovation in its virtual assistant in the near future.
Instead, it looks like Apple will continue to focus on delivering real, physical products that outshine the competition, while companies like Google and Microsoft are pouring billions of dollars into chatbot development. However, this does not mean that Siri has been completely forgotten. iOS 17 is expected to bring some improvements to Apple’s virtual assistant. The upcoming update is said to shift Siri’s onscreen interface from the bottom of your iPhone screen to Dynamic Island on compatible devices.
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