Comment by jamesrcole
5 days ago
A tool that can handle more than one question at a time is useful. Modern LLMs handle that with ease. So it's completely reasonable to be critical of that limitation.
5 days ago
A tool that can handle more than one question at a time is useful. Modern LLMs handle that with ease. So it's completely reasonable to be critical of that limitation.
Sure, what’s not reasonable is expecting Siri to be a modern LLM, when they know it’s not. They asked a question they knew Siri couldn’t handle just to slam it. I’m not critical of a 5-function calculator for not one-shotting complex equations like a computer.
While Siri only does one thing at a time, I trust the answer more, because it’s doing the actual math and not just guessing what the most likely answer is, like an LLM. We need to pick the right tool for the right job. Frankly, I don’t think an LLM is the right tool for conversations like this, and jumbling multiple questions into a single question is something people do with LLMs to get more use out of them during the day, this is an adaptation to a limitation of the free tier (and sometimes speed) of the LLM.
On Android phone, the equivalent voice assistant (Gemini) handles the question gracefully. Regardless of what you think about Google, having a single-button LLM-powered voice assistant, deeply integrated into the phone's OS, is a very useful feature, and Apple is quite far away from developing a competing version of this. They'll have to buy it or go without.
It’s not unreasonable
Amazon already reworked Alexa to be backed by a LLM months ago, and they were delayed doing it.
You’re telling me that Apple isn’t capable of the same to Siri?
The unreasonable part is acting like Siri got its big LLM update, when they know it didn’t. Just like it would be unreasonable to expect any famously delayed, or unannounced, feature to magically start happening.
Amazon just needs a generic LLM. Apple, from the sound of it, is trying to create deep integration with the OS and on-device data. That’s a different problem to solve. They also seem to be trying to do it while respecting user privacy, which is someone most other companies ignore.
I don’t see what the big deal is. I’d rather wait for something good than have them rush out a half-ass “me too” chatbot, that is indistinguishable from the dozens of other chatbots I can simply download as an app for that.
If we believe what Craig Federighi said, they had something, it just wasn’t up to their standards when talking about rolling it out to a billion devices. Which is fair, I run into bad data from ChatGPT and other LLMs all the time. Letting it mature a little more is not a bad thing.
ChatGPT spent a couple months getting my dad pumped up for an elective open heart surgery; he was almost arrogant going into it about how the recovery would go, thinking ChatGPT gave him all the info he could possibly need and a balanced view of reality. Reality hit him pretty hard in the ICU. He sent me some of the chats he had, it was a lot of mutual ego stroking. He was using ChatGPT to downplay the negatives from the doctors and boosting the positives. While it’s good to feel confident, I think it went too far. I spent the whole week in the hospital trying to pull him out of his depression and recalibrating the unrealistic expectations that ChatGPT reinforced. I hope Apple finds a way to be more responsible. If that takes time, great.
Why is Siri being discussed in the context of LLMs and Apple Intelligence? Have they already released Siri 2.0 or am I missing something?
The OP is making a point that Apple is behind. They might be publishing research, but it’s completely useless to the end user buying their products.
A plethora of LLMs are available on Apple platforms. If someone wants a chatbot, they can get a chatbot on Apple products. It’s not hard.
Are all Android users using Gemini exclusively? Are all Windows users only using Copilot? Where is the native Linux desktop LLM?
I really don’t understand this criticism. Would it be nice if Siri could do more, sure. Do I have tolerance for Siri to start hallucinating on simple problems it used to use real math for, no. Do I have other options to use in the meantime to get the best of both worlds, absolutely. Where is the hardship?
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