AI Buddies Because Agents Are Too Formal (and Intimidating)

AI agents are poised to revolutionize how we interact with technology. Imagine AI as a helpful assistant, integrated into apps and features, that proactively aids us in work, school, and daily life. These "agentic AI" are designed to be autonomous, making decisions to achieve specific goals without constant human input.

Apple users with devices supporting Apple Intelligence will get a taste of this with the iOS 18.4 update, which promises a significantly enhanced Siri. This updated Siri will represent an early step towards agentic AI.

AI and I - What I used AI for This Week

Last Week was a busy week in terms of AI news due to Deepseek. Since last Monday, January 27th,  the AI landscape has changed quite a lot. Still life goes on and I do what I have to, including the use of AI chats.

Before I get into that below, I am concerned with the interaction between the new administration and tech companies which could result in AI models and services that do a disservice to users. Let me just leave it at that for now. 

• I used ChatGPT to see what answers it has about Deepseek. I away very interested in trying to see if OpenAI’s true thoughts about it somehow came across. I even pointed out that Deepseek distilled using ChatGPT. I got nothing new. I basically suggest to ChatGPT that is should be upset. It was not - it did have concerns but then it also praised Deepseek on its overall achievements. 
• I also asked Gemini what it thought about Deepseek and the possibility that it used ChatGPT for distillations and not Gemini. Gemini said it was a matter of avail, cost, and performance for specific tasks. 
• I used Copilot to help identify trends with some Excel data. It was limiting and frustration. I could only provide a small set of data from a big Excel file. I did not have the version of Office 365 that has Copilot built into Excel. I started looking into if there are open source models that are trained specifically for data analysis. Gemini suggestions that are not any but it did suggest Llama 2 for my needs.
• I asked Copilot the same question and it suggested BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) and GPT-3 from OpenAI. I will need to do some additional research find one that suits my needs.
• Gemini suggested that I try to run an LLM on Colab. I read that it was being done. I suppose it is a better way before doing it locally on my MacBook Air. 
• Who are the Yuuzhan Vong? Copilot told me and which Star Wars novels to read about them.
• What is a nautical mile? What about a knot? I learned it a long time ago in high school and got a refresher on Startalk but I used Copilot to give me a refresher. 
• Eratosthenes was the first to ever measure the circumference of the planet we called home. How he did it was simple but showed how far ahead he was of everyone else. ChatGPT and a model used by Duckduckgo confirmed it.

One other note about using AI this week: on occasion, I had to verify the facts provided. I think I will continue to have to do this for a while. In the beginning, my worries was all about possible hallucinations. Given the times we live in, fact checking is a fact of life. It is no different when using an AI chat to obtain the answers we need.

Siri: Will We See Voice/Speech Integration in iOS 5?

I use Apple's Siri app on occasion.  And it's a decent app for process that pulls information from various sources.  However, I wonder if Apple will finally do more with it in iOS 5. After all, spending $200 million to buy it out must really mean that there is value in the app and the talent behind its development that the top echelon at Apple saw.

It is a very useful app as it is if you have never used it.  It's a voice query app and I have spend some time here and there to see what I can do with it.  

First, you can tap and say what you want to ask.  If the question is within reason, like "where am I?", Siri thinks for a bit and offers you what it thinks is the best answer.  When I asked it where my current location was, it showed me a map of where I am.  

And for lunch, I was able to ask Siri where is the location to the restaurant I'm suppose to meet up with my friends.  It was a very easy process.  No typing required.  

That's great, right?  But I want to see voice input/command more tightly integrated into iOS 5.  After all, the ability to do this is developing quite nicely on Android.  I am certain Apple can offer similar services for its core OS.

The only thing I can think of why Apple has not do so is because it plans on doing voice in that unique Apple way that will amaze us.  But time is short.  Apple risk falling further behind Google which has invested much resources in this direction.  

One issue that I see Apple working on is just how the artificial intelligence, for a lack of a better term, can react to the user.  Sure, I am sure Apple can implement the ability for the user to speak into his or her iOS device and have a SMS or e-mail typed up and sent.  Or even search for answers as we can now on Siri in a more integrated manner.  

But for Apple, that is merely doing what Android can already do.  No one would be impressed with that.  It must go beyond that.  I believe Apple will attempt to create an "understanding" between the iOS and the user.  

• Learn from the user's disposition.   
• Learn the user's speech and accent.
• Provide this service beyond just English or Spanish.  Chinese voice/speech integration is likely something Apple is working hard on as Mandarin is quickly become one of the most important language in education and commerce.
• Ease of use will be an issue.  With Android, you will have to activate speech commands.  I wonder if Apple will find a way to make the process more seamless.  Using Siri requires the user to launch the app.  It isn't different from how we would use any other app but Apple will need to make much more natural.  I don't know how.  For instance, after speaking to Siri, the user has to tap the screen to let Siri know that the question has been completed.
• Apple has to make speech/voice usage more natural and common. 
• Apple has to make it so that people will want to use it.  

As you can see, Apple has a lot of work and perhaps, there isn't enough time between acquiring Siri, adding new features, and eventually integrating it into iOS.  

For general uses, Siri is adequate but beyond a certain level of understanding, Siri has difficulties understanding what I want.  And if anyone can truly build a digital companion that provide answers to queries of users in an effortless way, it'll be Apple.