Siri, What Time Is It in London? (daringfireball.net)

Article summary

The article discusses an issue with Siri where it provides the time in London, Canada, instead of London, England, when asked 'What time is it in London?'. This is seen as a failure of common sense and inconsistent with other virtual assistants. The author argues that a human assistant who made the same mistake would be considered incompetent. The inconsistency is highlighted by the fact that Siri provides the correct answer on a HomePod, but not on an iPhone or Apple Watch.

Main themes

• Virtual Assistant Failures
• Common Sense in AI
• Location Disambiguation
• User Expectations
• Consistency in Design
• Comparison to Human Assistants

What commenters say

• Siri's mistake is a result of a lack of common sense and inconsistent design.
• The issue is not with Siri, but with the user's assumption that 'London' refers to London, England.
• Virtual assistants should be able to disambiguate location names based on context and general knowledge.
• The pandemic travel ban does not justify Siri's answer, as the behavior has not changed since before the pandemic.
• Asking a virtual assistant for the time in a location is not a complex task and should be handled correctly.
• The comparison to human assistants is unfair, as virtual assistants are limited by their programming and data.
• The inconsistency in Siri's responses across different devices is a significant problem.
• Users should not have to clarify their questions with specific details, such as the country or region, for a virtual assistant to provide a correct answer.