Originally Posted by
wizard69 
By the way Siri is interesting but it really need to move to your Mac and be taught there. That is Siri need to learn from your system and interact with it in an intelligent way. In effect Siri becomes sort of an AI replacement for Finder. You hard disk in effect becomes home base and the starting point for all activities that Siri may perform.
In essence this would put an artificial intelligence or agent right in our computer. Ideally one that works intelligently with Apples Siri servers to expand your reach. I fully expect that we are a long way from Star Trek like computer interaction but I don't see any problem with being able to replace Finder operation, local and Internet search, file dialogs and the like with voice interaction. It should be a snap to say open a Memo ( or E-Mail ), to xxxxx, the subject of which is: xxxxx ccccc bbbbb rrrr and have a memo template filled out and ready for dictation. Doing so without going to Apples servers would likely make this AI more useful than Siri for many businesses. The sending of so much information to Apple is a serious security issue for some companies.
So yeah Siri like AI would be most welcomed in Mac OS but make it a local AI that the local user has control of.
Ooh, how about this:
Siri with action-as-you-speak. A system of action-response with mid-action deletion or retraction, and visual feedback all along the way.
So let's use your example as, well, an example! Say you're typing a response to a post in a thread and you suddenly think of an answer to an e-mail you were sent. Hit Function twice and Siri starts listening with her usual bee-beep.
"Send an e-mail reply to Scott Forstall about Siri on the desktop."
"Send an" narrows it down to Messages and Mail (and… ugh… Twitter and Facebook…), "e-mail" solidifies the application being used, "Scott Forstall" is the recipient of the message, and "reply" tells Siri to prepare to look through the titles of all e-mails from Scott Forstall. "About" is the delineator for when Siri should start listening for the title, and "Siri on the desktop" is the string in the title that she should look to match.
Wait a second or so or just keep talking. Siri pulls down the standard Mail message window with the commands you've already given her in place, greying out the rest of the UI to show that this is what you're working on right now.
Dictate the message, finish up, and hit Function again (or you can just wait a few seconds). Siri'll ask if you want to send it, hit the button or reply vocally. The important thing is that all this happens visually as you're doing it so that you know it's happening properly. If something isn't right (not with dictation, with the commands Siri has executed), the best thing I can think of is having a dedicated phrase (or set thereof) for her to always be listening for. So you're telling Siri to do something and she does it wrong. You say,
"Siri, no, that's wrong." or "That's wrong, Siri." or "Siri, that's wrong." or "No, Siri, that's wrong."
These phrases pull triple duty. First, they give Siri two to three key sets of phonemes to listen for that wouldn't be put together for a different reason. Second, they are natural speaking phrases. This is stuff you'd say to a human, not a block of one-word commands like a computer of old would be forced to need. Third, look at all four of those phrases. What do they remind you of? Admonishing a child? Well, now. What have we here.
If the above phrases are used to catch mistakes with that in mind, we are psychologically tuned toward, not acceptance of the mistakes, but giving them more leeway. Users don't even have to be told in ads or by an Apple Store employee in demonstration "think of Siri as a child learning about the world around her", because those phrases do that for us. This in turn also makes users subconsciously less likely to become frustrated by an incorrect action their computer has performed. If the user is fully aware that it is teaching the computer something (and not feeling like it's the other way around) like a parent would a child, they'll be more patient with its foibles until Siri starts to get things correctly more often.
Anyway, if you make a mistake, say the phrase, and then without having to pause, simply repeat the original command you gave it and watch to see that Siri does it correctly. If it is not again corrected, the delivery of both the first and nth commands are tagged to the accepted actions of the nth command for future reference.
