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0 pointsplasticbugs2y ago0 comments

It's a striking condemnation of the current state of things that my $1K+ mobile phone does not do anything close to what's in this demo. I would pay $200 just to have a voice assistant that isn't totally incapable of playing songs requested like "Play SONG_TITLE from ALBUM_TITLE".

As an example, yesterday my daughter asked for a song from Snow White.

EDITED FOR CORRECTNESS (originally I said I asked for Heigh Ho from Cinderella)

In the car I say, "Hey Siri, play Heigh Ho from the Snow White Soundtrack". Siri: "Sure, here's Snow (Hey Oh) by Red Hot Chili Peppers" (try it yourself!)

Why are Alexa and Siri still so useless, inaccurate and inconsistent? Why can't I yet ask Siri to "book me a ride via Uber from location X to location Y" or "reorder the same thing I got last Tuesday from Uber Eats"? I assume it's down to compute costs, but I would absolutely pay an additional subscription fee for more intelligence behind these voice assistants.

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8 comments · 4 top-level

dabluecaboose2y ago· 4 in thread

>I say, "Hey Siri, play Heigh Ho from the Cinderella Soundtrack".

It probably doesn't help that "Heigh Ho" is from Snow White

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSj2h34ZrmY

jetpackjoe2y ago

ChatGPT seems to handle this fine

> Prompt: Give me the lyrics for Heigh Ho from the Cinderella Soundtrack

> ChatGPT: "Heigh-Ho" is actually a song from the soundtrack of Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," not "Cinderella." The song is famously sung by the seven dwarfs as they head to and from their work at a mine. Here are the lyrics:

*lyrics omitted, but they seem correct

plasticbugsOP2y ago

Sorry, I did actually ask for Snow White in the car! And it played a song called "Snow". Haha, reproducing it here at my desk I mistakenly said "Cinderella"

plasticbugsOP2y ago

Siri: "Here's Snow (Hey Oh) by Red Hot Chili Peppers" :smacks-forehead:

dabluecaboose2y ago

There are worse songs to accidentally get! That said, I sympathize. Given how easy it is to get, say, the passenger to put on a song, it's absurd how many hoops you have to jump through with any voice assistant to get it right.

For example, I often wish I could just queue up a song to play next like I can over touch, but there's no elegant way for me to do that without picking up my phone in the car. If my wife were riding with me, all I'd have to say is "Hey play [XYZ] next", a feat yet unmatched by any voice assistant

herval2y ago

To be fair, all of that seems quite easily done with an app - your phone should be more than capable of running those models.

I’d imagine something like siri or alexa isn’t evolving as fast since the server side cost at their scale would be astronomical..

dvt2y ago

I kind of agree with this. I'm not sure why the product is getting so much heat here on HN. I do think it's probably overkill and won't be super sticky, but it's at least iterating in the right direction.

supertimor2y ago

I got it to work with Siri but had to give it a slightly different prompt. “Play Heigh-Ho from Disney’s Snow White soundtrack,” seems to work.

Edit: I tried it a couple of more times with the same prompt and this is not consistently reproducible, so yeah, Siri is still pretty bad at this.

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8 comments · 4 top-level

dabluecaboose2y ago· 4 in thread

>I say, "Hey Siri, play Heigh Ho from the Cinderella Soundtrack".

It probably doesn't help that "Heigh Ho" is from Snow White

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSj2h34ZrmY

jetpackjoe2y ago

ChatGPT seems to handle this fine

> Prompt: Give me the lyrics for Heigh Ho from the Cinderella Soundtrack

*lyrics omitted, but they seem correct

plasticbugsOP2y ago

Sorry, I did actually ask for Snow White in the car! And it played a song called "Snow". Haha, reproducing it here at my desk I mistakenly said "Cinderella"

plasticbugsOP2y ago

Siri: "Here's Snow (Hey Oh) by Red Hot Chili Peppers" :smacks-forehead:

dabluecaboose2y ago

herval2y ago

To be fair, all of that seems quite easily done with an app - your phone should be more than capable of running those models.

I’d imagine something like siri or alexa isn’t evolving as fast since the server side cost at their scale would be astronomical..

dvt2y ago

supertimor2y ago

I got it to work with Siri but had to give it a slightly different prompt. “Play Heigh-Ho from Disney’s Snow White soundtrack,” seems to work.

Edit: I tried it a couple of more times with the same prompt and this is not consistently reproducible, so yeah, Siri is still pretty bad at this.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse