Siri's creators will reveal a new and improved AI assistant next week

[midian182]

Siri wasn’t created by Apple; the iOS pocket assistant was an independent app before being purchased by the Cupertino company back in 2010. Now, the original creators are preparing to reveal a new artificial intelligence technology that’s better than any virtual assistant out there, according to a report in the Washington Post.

One-third of the team that worked on Siri, including co-founders Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, are now working on the new product, called Viv. The origins of its development started in 2003, preceding Siri, when Cheyer led a team working on a Defense Department project to create a next-generation personal assistant.

Viv is said to be the AI that Kittlaus and Cheyer wanted Siri to be. Kittlaus describes Siri today as being more like a chatbot, whereas Viv can handle complex requests and do many tasks that Apple’s assistant is incapable of – it can even be used without having to type anything into a smartphone or downloading an app.

Showtime next week after 3.5 years of work. https://t.co/s0i6gfu4BX

— Dag Kittlaus (@Dagk) May 4, 2016

With Viv, you’ll be able to do things like order a pizza, call an Uber cab, or book dinner and a movie as if you were talking to a real person. To make this possible, Viv will tap into the services of around 50 launch partners, including Uber, GrubHub, Zocdoc, and SeatGuru.

There are a number of digital assistants that claim to be an improvement over Siri, such as Amazon’s Alexa, which also uses third-party service integration. We’ll find out this coming Monday if Viv - already attracting the interest of Facebook and Google - really is the future of AI at TechCrunch Disrupt.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/64708-siri-creators-reveal-new-improved-ai-assistant-next.html

 

[oldikes]

Yea they all talk about new features but they all need work on actually understand what people are saying..

 

[psycros]

What they need is an off button for this garbage. I will never own a device that's got a spy listening to every word I say. Granted, the NSA doesn't have backdoor access to Apple servers (as far as Apple knows, anyway) and their data is all encrypted, which would include voice searches. You'd be insane to use Cortana since the NSA has a direct line into all things Microsoft. Same probably goes for Google. Thankfully, neither of those companies have gotten many people to use their audio search functions.

 

[Uncle Al]

Oh yeah .... computers, tablets, phones, x-wives & girlfriends all definitely need an OFF switch and the sooner the better!

 

[PinothyJ]

So which one is it? New or improved?

 

[Tanstar]

What they need is an off button for this garbage. I will never own a device that's got a spy listening to every word I say. Granted, the NSA doesn't have backdoor access to Apple servers (as far as Apple knows, anyway) and their data is all encrypted, which would include voice searches. You'd be insane to use Cortana since the NSA has a direct line into all things Microsoft. Same probably goes for Google. Thankfully, neither of those companies have gotten many people to use their audio search functions.

What are you searching for that would interest the NSA and you don't think they can intercept manual searches?