Siri AI and personal context

It's busy season for us Apple writers, so forgive me for any neglect to the blog. Today, I'd like to briefly share some more of my experiences with the new Siri AI.

So far, I have been trying various interactions related to finding out information from the web or making plans. One example I tried was asking it to list all fast food restaurants within 10 miles, it did so using an image from Apple Maps, and then I asked it to randomly choose one for dinner.

Simple queries like that work great, however, the more complex I go, the more interesting it seems. Of course, there are limitations, and Siri will do its best to avoid non-factual discussion or offer opinions.

The tooling around Siri is very specific. It can answer questions or point to information, but it keeps interactions short and never tries to praise you or sell you anything.

What was really interesting is when I started chatting about personal matters. While I don't need Siri to be my therapist, arbiter, or friend, I find it interesting that it has access to everything I've ever said in a chat, every Journal entry I've made, photos, Calendar events, etc.

Siri AI has access to a very large personal database pertaining to my life and events over the past decade.

I tested this by asking about a very specific family situation. "Explain to me the relationship dynamic of this family member over the past decade and list major events by year."

It did so, with links to Messages and Journal entries, even some emails. One thing it pulled was the obituary I wrote for my brother when he passed in 2018 and how his passing might have affected the family.

Really, I was impressed with its data-gathering abilities.

You might say "it's just repeating what you've said back to you," which is true. And while I know these events, my ability to gather these details and format them, organize them, and reference their origin is limited. It would take hours to produce what Siri gave me in seconds.

I prodded with personal questions, asked how things might have changed since a certain event, and more. What's most impressive is how it packages this information. It's straightforward, says what occurred, and doesn't sugarcoat, avoid certain things, or treat me like I need to always be right.

I don't know how all of this might help a person. I like journaling daily, and have done so for years. The fact that now everything I've written and all of the context of the information in chats and whatnot is a query away is powerful. No, I'm not trying to pretend I'm chatting with a past AI version of myself or anything weird.

The way Siri AI is set up is that it's an interface for your data. That's it. And being able to explore complex problems and mull on a situation by exploring thoughts and feelings I've written myself through an interface is powerful.

Another example was I asked when the last time I had an argument with a family member. It pulled up the exact situation, explained that while things were tense, it was over something non-personal and didn't end up causing relational harm, where past interactions did.

This is the power of Siri AI. It doesn't matter what numbers you tell me about parameters and power. I don't care who did what first or how slow Apple was to arrive at something.

It's here, it's on my Apple devices, it's private, secure, and when off device, runs in private servers that meet Apple's standards. Those other programs basically don't exist for me. I don't plan to use them for many reasons, but one is that I would never give them access to my data the way Siri has access. Period.

In my world, and people who have similar priorities for privacy and security, Apple just leaped every other company in the AI race. It's not even close anymore, and Apple is just getting started.