A decade ago, on Oct. 4, 2011, Apple launched a new product.
It started off shaky, but it has been 10 years of technological advancement. Instead of fixing its problems, creating anything new, or actually answering any of our questions with helpful answers, it simply maintained. It has continued to suck for a decade.
When it came out in the iPhone 4S, it felt revolutionary, even though it wasn't the first digital assistant created. You can have your phone respond back to you. You could ask "What's the meaning of life?", "Siri, do you love me?", or "What is the weather outside?" Susan Bennett accidentally created the voice of Siri, which she would let you know the answers to the best of her abilities. Her abilities were not very good. Outside of the easy-programmed answers like the weather outside or the day of the week, instead of giving direct answers, you can ask for a Wikipedia article.
Major tech companies released their own digital assistants within a year. In July of 2012 we were given a gift, which was later turned into the assistant for the search engine. In November of 2014, we were given an appliance by Amazon. Are they more useful than the person on the other end of the phone?
Today, if you ask, "Is weed legal in New York?", she responds by saying, "OK, I've found this on the web for is weed legal in New York, check it out." That isn't an answer? Federal law prohibits the use, sale, and possession of all forms of cannabis. The state of New York allows the use of cannabis for medical purposes. New York does not allow the recreational use of cannabis. New York has legalized recreational marijuana after years of failed attempts and stalling efforts, according to an article on the website of the New York Times.
It's possible that Tweet has been deleted.
Recreational marijuana is legal in the state of New York, but it wasn't entirely correct when you asked about it. My question was answered by the assistant. Is it possible to have a person like that though? I was told to figure it out on my own. I'm going to have to click on those links and read and research it on my own, which takes away the virtual assistant capabilities. If I hired an assistant who said "hey, can you figure out if weed is legal in New York?" and they said "here's some required reading," I wouldn't want that assistant.
That's not the only thing that the computer can do. It's not good to have a person like Siri turn on lights in your house. When it first launched, you had to change the lights in one room at a time, but it still doesn't work for all smart light bulbs. You can say to your phone that you're running late, and it will send a text to your best friend that is potentially the most aggressive version of that message, one in which you would never have actually type up yourself: "I am running late."
The period! The formality! You're going to have to manually edit that text, so you might as well have typed it out yourself the first time.
We've seen the importance of virtual assistants. It's helpful to people with disabilities. It can be used with speakers that are compatible with the hearing aids. Amazon's and Google's assistants have become more useful. Voice readers are a huge phenomenon on TikTok.
We have to deal with the least helpful voice assistant of them all, and there's no reason to believe they'll get any better over the next decade.
