How Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant Lost the AI Race to Chatbots

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Once upon a time, Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant were the rockstars of the virtual assistant world, wowing audiences with their AI-driven capabilities. However, in recent years, these voice assistants have fallen behind in the race for glory, losing out to a new kid on the block – chatbots.

Say Goodbye to the Voice Lords: So why have chatbots surpassed their voice-activated counterparts?

Let’s take a closer look and find out…

Also check our blog post: Introducing Google Bard

Introduction – The fall of the voice lords

Image Source: techcrunch

It was a long drawn rain laden Tuesday sometime back in San Francisco, when some erstwhile Apple executives had proudly taken to the stage in a much suffocatingly crowded auditorium for the grand launch and a much tragic unveiling of the fifth-gen iPhone.

The phone, however looking strikingly like an identical twin to its previous version, had a brand new feature to boast that soon set the audience’s and the grapevine buzzing about: any guesses it was good old Siri, a brand new face to the world of AI driven virtual assistants.

Scott Forstall, the then head of software at Apple, had pressed an iPhone button to amazingly summon the erstwhile sensation Siri and quizzed it with a lot of impromptu commands and questions.

Magically at his request, Siri had checked in on the current time in Paris (“it’s 8:15 p.m.,” Siri magically responded), it also defined the word “mitosis” (” As the Cell division process where nucleus breaks into nuclei having the exact number of chromosomes,” it had said) also pulling out a random list of 15 high rated Greek cuisine restaurants, with about six of them were situated in Palo Alto, Calif.

That was over 12 years ago, and since then, Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant have become a stagnant punchline. But the world is now going crazy for chatbots, a slightly different type of AI-driven virtual assistant that can generate humane answers to any question that’s typed into the chat box.

Nonetheless the tech embedded in these voice bots have largely remained the same and are kind of stagnant and sluggish without much hope of expecting miracles from them in the coming years, making these good ole voice assistants the absolute butt ends of all tech jokes.

It’s known all about the new kid on the block- Chatbots

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The world has now been going gaga over a slightly varied kind of AI driven virtual assistants: introducing chat bots.

Chatbots are the new sensation in AI-driven virtual assistants. These sensational NLP driven bots, such as the famed and hysterical Chat GPT from Open AI in San Francisco, have  proved to dynamically improvise and generate NLP backed humane answers to all the questions that are being typed in its chat box with a personal touch. Most folks are turning to Chat GPT for

completing complex tasks like writing codes and fixing broken links in existing software, drafting business plans proposals, drafting social media captions and even writing fiction.

The newfound glee and excitement around these new kids on the block – chatbots demonstrates how Siri, Alexa, Google and other erstwhile famed voice assistants – that had once upon a time ironically  elicited a familiar sense of amazement enthusiasm – have long back left squandering their leads  in this long driven AI Assistant’s race for glory.

Imagining AI in a new way

Image Source: Murf AI

Chatbots and voice bots are both powered by AI, but they differ in one crucial way. Chatbots are based on large human language generative models and trained by AI trainers to pre-generate text based on natural language processing (NLP) and ginormous datasets. This allows them to create interactive, relatable sentences with a personal touch. In contrast, Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are AI-driven command-and-control systems that understand a finite and limited list of queries and requests.

The Race to the Top

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Now, tech giants are racing to develop NLP-driven chatbots like Chat GPT and Google’s Bard to help businesses, individuals, and software developers build applications, write code, and incorporate their solutions into their own systems. The hope is that these new advancements will lead to a mutually beneficial convergence of chatbots and voice assistants, where users can control chatbots with their speech and voice bots can aid in complex tasks beyond mundane commands like turning off lights.

Voice bots VS Chatbots.

Image Source:  intelligentliving

In stark contrast, Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant were most essentially programmed as what is known as an AI driven command-and-control system.

They are trained to understand almost a  finite and limited list of queries, questions and fulfill shorthand easy commands and  task requests like  “Tell me What’s the weather today?” or “Switch off the bathroom lights.” However keep in mind that whenever a user asks the voice assistant to do something that is not pre- programmed in its code, the voice bot simply answers back by saying it didn’t understand the request or can’t be of help in that regard.

Most of the Silicon Valley big tech giants are now competing against racing to whisk up magically real- life NLP driven responses such as the case of Chat GPT. Almost all AI engineers, including the programmers behind the Siri team, have started testing human language driven – pre generating concepts almost every week since the historic launch of the highly famed Chat GPT last November.

Conclusion – Who’s gonna win the AI race.

Image Source: Atlassian

In conclusion, the rise of chatbots is changing the game, outpacing the once-dominant Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant in the AI race. It’s really an exciting time for AI, and we all just can’t wait to see what the future holds!

The competition is fierce, and tech giants like Google are also working on their own NLP-driven pre-generative AI chatbots. Google has soft-launched Bard, a rival to Chat GPT programmed and driven to help businesses, individuals, governments and software developers build applications, write codes, and incorporate its underlying powers, fixes and solutions into their own individual systems.

Hopefully the near future will reveal the further advancements behind the NLP driven pre-generative technologies deployed by the most modern chatbots and voice assistants in a mutually beneficial convergence, well that’s what most AI experts quite optimistically feel.

Meaning that most individuals will be able to command and control chatbots with their speech, and while those who are still hooked to using Apple, Alexa and Google voice bots should be able to ask these virtual voice assistants to aid them in their day jobs, and not just merely commanding mundane tasks like what’s the weather or switch on the lights.

Hopefully!

The Takeaway

So, what can we take away from this? In short, chatbots have won the AI race thanks to their ability to generate humane and interactive responses based on NLP and extensive datasets. While Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant may have been the pioneers of the AI-driven virtual assistant world, they’ve been surpassed by chatbots in terms of their capabilities and user experience. As the technology continues to evolve, we can only expect more exciting advancements in the world of AI-driven virtual assistants.