Photo: USPTO
While digital assistants are very useful for hands-free interaction with the features of a phone or another device, such as head units in a car, they come with several drawbacks.
One of them is the wake-up phrase that needs to be used before every command, as this is the approach that companies are using to deal with privacy concerns and make sure assistants aren’t always listening to users. But this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not looking into ways to get rid of this feature and make the conversation overall feel more natural.
Apple is one of the companies trying to make the digital assistant act more like a human being, and a recent patent is a living proof the iPhone maker is currently exploring several ideas in this regard.
Called “Natural Assistant Interaction,” the patent describes a system allowing the user to talk to Siri without a wake-up phrase. And more importantly, by mentioning several commands at once, with the assistant then able to provide answers one by one.
One of the best improvements, however, is related to how Siri would be able to determine a voice command in an ongoing conversation between two human beings. Here’s one example that Apple offers in the patent and which would allow Siri to act like a real person.
User 1: Siri, what is the S&P index today?
User 2: Did you hear that AAPL went up a lot today?
User 1: Really, what is the price for AAPL today?
Siri: The S&P 500 index is at 12,000 today.
Siri: APPL closed at $200 today.
The biggest problem will obviously be dealing with the privacy concerns we mentioned earlier. How will Apple manage to power these features without having a digital assistant listen to conversations all the time? This is something that not only Apple, but also other companies, like Google and Amazon, are trying to figure out right now, as this appears to be the main roadblock when it comes to making their assistants feel like a human being.
Apple is one of the companies trying to make the digital assistant act more like a human being, and a recent patent is a living proof the iPhone maker is currently exploring several ideas in this regard.
Called “Natural Assistant Interaction,” the patent describes a system allowing the user to talk to Siri without a wake-up phrase. And more importantly, by mentioning several commands at once, with the assistant then able to provide answers one by one.
One of the best improvements, however, is related to how Siri would be able to determine a voice command in an ongoing conversation between two human beings. Here’s one example that Apple offers in the patent and which would allow Siri to act like a real person.
User 1: Siri, what is the S&P index today?
User 2: Did you hear that AAPL went up a lot today?
User 1: Really, what is the price for AAPL today?
Siri: The S&P 500 index is at 12,000 today.
Siri: APPL closed at $200 today.
The biggest problem will obviously be dealing with the privacy concerns we mentioned earlier. How will Apple manage to power these features without having a digital assistant listen to conversations all the time? This is something that not only Apple, but also other companies, like Google and Amazon, are trying to figure out right now, as this appears to be the main roadblock when it comes to making their assistants feel like a human being.
Google News