The Wiki Man: Speaking to Siri

Why am I typing this article rather than dictating it via some wonderful voice recognition software? It’s a question worth asking. Twenty years ago, all Spectator writers would have written every article by hand (only two or three still do). In my office in the 1980s, it was frowned on to type your own letters, since typing was seen as secretarial work. Are we due another revolution in how our thoughts are transmitted from brain to machine?

Science fiction has always assumed that computers will converse — HAL-9000, C-3PO, Marvin the Paranoid Android and Thermostellar Bomb #20 (from the 1974 comedy Dark Star) have provided some of the most memorable dialogue in film. Now, 44 years after HAL refused to ‘open the pod-bay doors’, the new Apple iPhone contains a virtual assistant called Siri to which you can address short commands or questions. Given Apple’s record of inspiring trends rather than merely exploiting them, we can’t ignore this development. Yet for now I remain sceptical.

Yes, there are some circumstances in which voice activation is useful. If you are driving, say. Currently the only voice recognition service I use is a number I call from the car called Traintracker (0871 200 49 50) which gives me live departure times of trains whilst I am headed to the station. It can be slightly unreliable (I find it helps to fake a Mancunian accent for place names, pronouncing the ‘u’ in Surrey like the ‘u’ in ‘put’ not ‘putt’) but it is better than crashing the car while trying to type.

Intriguingly the technology behind Siri has its origins in defence research. Fair enough; the dogfighting pilot of an F-15 may already have enough to do with his hands to welcome the option of issuing additional spoken instructions.