Anyone notice siri no longer recognizes common foreign idoms anymore? Either in TTS or Ask Siri… The only concrete example I have is recognizing “Croque Monsieur” since my love for hot ham sandwiches has spanned the ages… but I feel like there’s something more nefarious at work here.

It feels like used to be able to ask for a info about random foreign words and it would at least trigger a web search for something phonetically similar, which would often get me the translation I was after. But lately* the TTS engine is militantly transforming everything into English. Obviously this is more subtle and open to other interpretations, but for example I just asked her what “hikikomori” were which got interpreted as “Hickam Morty,” with top hits for the show Rick and Morty.

    • sramder@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      I did ponder the possibility of my mics just getting worn out, but clarity is still excellent in audio recording and generally for TTS or questions in straight English. I suspect Apple tweaked the model to exclude some of the phrases I had grown accustomed to using because they were being falsely recognized.

  • drewaustin@lemmy.caEnglish
    5·
    2 months ago

    Man, it seems like she is getting more useless by the day. It’s really sad how much the development of Siri has been left to flounder since its introduction.

      • Nikls94@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 months ago

        Old people had no option. Siri had a female voice, it was a she. Now it is an it, the Siri is just an artificial helper, either male or famale, two voices each. Siri can be what you want it to be.

  • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
    3·
    3 months ago

    Are you noticing this on multiple devices or just one? I know I start to have dictation trouble when my iPhone microphones get too loaded with debris. A clean dry toothbrush will get it clean without too much effort.

    • sramder@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Same behavior on my iPad. Although I can’t rule out the mics on my phone going south, it soaks up a lot more abuse than iPad Siri.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
        4·
        3 months ago

        Based on what little I know of Japanese, the first syllable isn’t supposed to rhyme with ‘Rick’, but should rhyme with ‘weak’.

        Most eastern languages are very particular about vowel sounds which is what might be throwing Siri off. I think English probably stands out among other languages for playing fast and loose with how vowels are pronounced. Results in some unique challenges for sure.

        • sramder@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          I’m honestly very impressed with the speech recognition. I played with dragon dictate years ago when it needed “about 2 weeks” worth of training to achieve 98% accuracy.

          Thanks for the tips. I think I’m going to see if I can get it to work — with a little practice.

  • cholesterol@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 months ago

    She does seem to have more trouble interpreting some of my requests. To my frustration Siri will show me a correct transcription of what I said and then still ask for confirmation. Or even worse she’ll ask me to repeat the entire request after producing a correct transcription. This happens a lot when using HomeKit.

    • sramder@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Huh… that sounds a proper bug. I don’t really do anything advanced with HomeKit, just my Hue lights.

      I wasn’t having the problem you described, but I did get a few odd glitches after the last update. She would sometimes complain that a light couldn’t be found. Turned out to be an extra space at the end of the names of some bulbs… very hard to see in most UIs, it wasn’t until I just idly renamed one in the Hue app that I realized what had happened.

  • ChrisG@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 months ago

    All of the digital assistants appear to be degrading to me. I suspect directing consumers to paid ‘AI’ versions which allegedly work, are the corporate plan.

  • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    3 months ago

    it would never even occur to me to ask Siri about such things. I’m surprised it ever worked for you.

    • sramder@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Blame that bit in Mr. Robot where the FBI agent asked Alexa when the universe was going to end. I’m always curious what a system is capable of…