This week saw the
introduction of Apple Computer's new iPhone 4S. Not all of the reviews have
been kind. For those expecting the next hardware answer to the Android-based
competition, the new phone fell short of the blogosphere's rumored
expectations. However, Steve Job's final creation (announced only a day before
his death) may prove to offer far more than its largely unchanged exterior
reveals. This device introduces Siri-- a personal assistant that, according to
Apple, "understands what you say." Okay, Apple is not above some
hyperbole. Recall in 1984 that the Macintosh was introduced with the phrase
"insanely great!" Well, it was. Nonetheless, Siri (whose parentage
includes SRI, Inc. and DARPA) appears to be much more than some clever parlor
trick. It seems to break the "understanding" barrier with some
remarkable first steps.
What makes Siri an
important accomplishment is not just its ability to perform speech recognition
and retrieve answers (though it represents significant advancement in both
areas). Siri attempts to understand the questions asked. It takes context into
consideration. Here is Apple's example.
So
when you ask “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri will reply “I found a
number of burger restaurants near you.” Then you can say “Hmm. How about
tacos?” Siri remembers that you just asked about restaurants, so it will look
for Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood.
Apple Computer, Inc. (http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html)
Siri is not the
first computer program to perform such feats of human-like cognitive
processing. But, Siri may be the first to place such capabilities in the palm
of your hand at consumer prices. It's not yet Watson-on-a-chip, but it's getting there faster than I thought. Form factor and pricing aside, this is simply
remarkable--insanely great! In order to appreciate the accomplishment it might
be useful to consider what an achievement question comprehension is in humans.
At a very early age
we all learn the power of asking questions. In it's simplest form we learn to
repeatedly (and annoyingly) ask "Why?" to almost any assertion made
by grownups. We test every claim and seek deeper understandings on everything.
It's fascinating to watch unless you’re the parent caught in your child's
"why loop." Children also learn quite early how to understand
questions (and avoid giving answers). "Who drew pictures on the wall in
crayon?" Complete understanding by the guilty child followed by silence.
Of the two skills--
question asking and question understanding-- we seem to do a better job at the
latter. When we ask-- "When will gas prices drop to reasonable
levels?" we're asking a loaded question. What's "reasonable"?
Some may think that it is unreasonable for prices to drop from a environmental
viewpoint. Others might long for the days of 25 cent per gallon gasoline. The
question sounds simple enough until you unpack it and discover that it is
either too vague or contains an assumption (i.e. that prices will drop) or
both. On the other hand, when someone
says-- "Do you know what time it is?"-- we typically understand that
they are asking for the current time of day and not merely whether we happen to
know the current time.
I don't want to
diminish the importance of asking good questions. Good questions--carefully
crafted questions-- can guide our investigations of what's true. They can
define the very starting point and scope of inquiry. If you pay much attention
to political discourse these days you might think that good questions are in
short supply. It's a concern for a free and democratic society. More attention
needs to be paid to learning to ask good questions. Good questions are clearly very important.
However, I'd like to take a moment to concentrate on question comprehension for
I think it is vital to seeking and judging answers.
Once a question is
asked, how is it understood? What is this simple yet amazing process? We don't
even think about it. We just do it. And,
we have been doing it since we were very young. Perhaps this is, in part, why
it has been so difficult for computer scientists to develop computers that can
understand questions. We didn't think it was all that difficult an activity.
After all, we've been understanding questions since we were asked a simple object identification question such as
--"What's this?" (as we are shown our favorite toy).
It was this problem
of question understanding that Dr. Wendy G. Lehnert tackled in her 1977
doctoral thesis, "The Process of Question
Answering - A Computer Simulation of Cognition." Yale
University (1977). Before a human or computer can retrieve/provide an answer to
a question, that question must be "understood". Lehnert developed a
taxonomy of the many structural types of questions and crafted an interesting
approach to conceptually analyzing the question in order to provide an
appropriate answer. The notion of context is key.
Many aspects of this
new application have me excited. Research and development in areas of
computational linguistics, and what some are calling "computational
knowledge" (see http://www.wolframalpha.com/
for one example ), are stepping out of the labs and into our practical lives.
In time, I believe that we will view human thought processes differently. We
may be better able to anticipate and correct for failures in our cognitive
processing. This work brings into focus some of the complexities of human
cognition. It may also help us see inward in a new way to better understand
some of the ways we fail to understand each other.
Alright, I'm asking
way too much of a device I just ordered and have yet to hold (pre-orders began
today--Friday, October 7, 2011). My enthusiasm for this new application is
clouding my thinking. Guilty as charged. It is, after all, just a phone.
Nothing stays insanely great forever. Still, this represents a wonderful step
in the evolution of our understanding of ourselves. And, that is always
insanely great.
