WTF is wrong with Siri?

[Edd]

All kinds of things, of course. Specifically, I ask it to add an item to the To Do list and it replies “I don’t see a To Do list, would you like me to create it?” Obviously I don’t because that list comes stock with the Reminder app.

Also, when I ask it to open a channel on SiriusXM, something it used to be able to do, it replies “I don’t see that channel in your library” Wrong again, every channel I’ve asked for is there.

I’ve rebooted and OS is up to date. Both apps have everything Siri related turned on. I’ve cycled those switches and no joy. Anyone got advice? Having it call up Sirius channels is nice while driving.

 

[Nycturne]

All kinds of things, of course. Specifically, I ask it to add an item to the To Do list and it replies “I don’t see a To Do list, would you like me to create it?” Obviously I don’t because that list comes stock with the Reminder app.

This is a bit messy, because of how structured this integration has to be to be extendible by random apps these days. By saying "Add <foo> to the to do list", it's tokenizing it this way: "Reminders, add [<foo>] to the list [to do]". Reminders wants a list, and so when you use the phrase "to do list", Siri is literally interpreting it as the list name and fills in that little parameter that Reminders wants with it. Reminders has no default list, and "list" seems to be a key word needed for this command to work, so you'll likely need to specify which list in Reminders you want to add the item to. For the longest time, I've had an "Inbox" list and just tell Siri to add to that, organizing it when I get a chance later.

EDIT: If you literally have a "To do" list, it's possible Siri is tokenizing it weirdly, and Reminders is doing more exact matching than it should. "Todo" vs "To do" can be bad if the receiving app doesn't support some form of fuzzy matching. I had to implement a rudimentary fuzzy matching search on my own app to account for the occasional "I confused two similar sounds" issue that Siri and many speech-to-text models have.

Also, when I ask it to open a channel on SiriusXM, something it used to be able to do, it replies “I don’t see that channel in your library” Wrong again, every channel I’ve asked for is there.

That sort of reply in my experience (as someone who has implemented Siri integration for playback) is shorthand for "Something looked up this token and didn't get any hits". Because the response doesn't specify the app name, I suspect it looked up a radio channel in Apple Music instead of SiriusXM. Siri will use whatever music app you asked about last by default if you don't give it an app name. So, you might need to say something like "Play <foo> in SiriusXM" to ensure the right app is used for the lookup.

e.g. "I don't see that in your Polyfonica library" (my app didn't find it)
e.g. "I don't see that in your music library" (Apple Music didn't find it)

If it is going to SiriusXM, then it's likely an app update broke it. Not too surprising since Siri usage is pretty low. With my app, which is still in TestFlight, I'm about the only one who uses Siri regularly.

 

[Edd]

This is a bit messy, because of how structured this integration has to be to be extendible by random apps these days. By saying "Add <foo> to the to do list", it's tokenizing it this way: "Reminders, add [<foo>] to the list [to do]". Reminders wants a list, and so when you use the phrase "to do list", Siri is literally interpreting it as the list name and fills in that little parameter that Reminders wants with it. Reminders has no default list, and "list" seems to be a key word needed for this command to work, so you'll likely need to specify which list in Reminders you want to add the item to. For the longest time, I've had an "Inbox" list and just tell Siri to add to that, organizing it when I get a chance later.

EDIT: If you literally have a "To do" list, it's possible Siri is tokenizing it weirdly, and Reminders is doing more exact matching than it should. "Todo" vs "To do" can be bad if the receiving app doesn't support some form of fuzzy matching. I had to implement a rudimentary fuzzy matching search on my own app to account for the occasional "I confused two similar sounds" issue that Siri and many speech-to-text models have.



That sort of reply in my experience (as someone who has implemented Siri integration for playback) is shorthand for "Something looked up this token and didn't get any hits". Because the response doesn't specify the app name, I suspect it looked up a radio channel in Apple Music instead of SiriusXM. Siri will use whatever music app you asked about last by default if you don't give it an app name. So, you might need to say something like "Play <foo> in SiriusXM" to ensure the right app is used for the lookup.

e.g. "I don't see that in your Polyfonica library" (my app didn't find it)
e.g. "I don't see that in your music library" (Apple Music didn't find it)

If it is going to SiriusXM, then it's likely an app update broke it. Not too surprising since Siri usage is pretty low. With my app, which is still in TestFlight, I'm about the only one who uses Siri regularly.

I say Sirius XM and it replies it does not see that channel in my SiriusXM library. It is in there. This all used to work not long ago.

 

[Cmaier]

I say Sirius XM and it replies it does not see that channel in my SiriusXM library. It is in there. This all used to work not long ago.

Same here. It may be an issue with the sirius app - it needs to publish to Siri what channels it supports. Worked for me before, but not just now.

 

[Eric]

Same here. It may be an issue with the sirius app - it needs to publish to Siri what channels it supports. Worked for me before, but not just now.

Nice to know it's not just the Amazon Echo, where Alexa can be embarrassingly stupid at times. For example it'll give you a notification that you couldn't quite here and you ask her to repeat and get "I could not understand the command", only from the echo in the next room. We seriously laugh at it half of the time.

One would think this tech would've advance by now but it still feels like a Speak and Spell from the 80s.

 

[fooferdoggie]

siri is just as lazy as trump. like I say remind me when I arrive at Walmart to get so and so. but it gets the words right but only has the item and not the location in the reminder over and over. Siri never seems to learn or improve.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Nice to know it's not just the Amazon Echo, where Alexa can be embarrassingly stupid at times. For example it'll give you a notification that you couldn't quite here and you ask her to repeat and get "I could not understand the command", only from the echo in the next room. We seriously laugh at it half of the time.

One would think this tech would've advance by now but it still feels like a Speak and Spell from the 80s.

yes but Siri is the worst of the bunch by far.

 

[Nycturne]

I say Sirius XM and it replies it does not see that channel in my SiriusXM library. It is in there. This all used to work not long ago.

If it is going to SiriusXM, then it's likely an app update broke it.

Siri just tokenizes the text, shoves it in a structure and asks the app to handle it. When the app fails or returns nothing is when you get this error.

 

[Edd]

All kinds of things, of course. Specifically, I ask it to add an item to the To Do list and it replies “I don’t see a To Do list, would you like me to create it?” Obviously I don’t because that list comes stock with the Reminder app.

So I let Siri create a To Do list of its own and that’s working. The list title reads “To-Do”. Siri really really thinks the title needed a dash between the words and that seems to have been the hang up.

I think we’re all safe from HAL 9000 or The Terminator for the time being.

 

[Nycturne]

So I let Siri create a To Do list of its own and that’s working. The list title reads “To-Do”. Siri really really thinks the title needed a dash between the words and that seems to have been the hang up.

I think we’re all safe from HAL 9000 or The Terminator for the time being.

File a bug against Reminders for not having good fuzzy matching?