Hacker News Reader

Comment by kempbellt | Hacker News Reader

What if you asked Google "what's the weather?" and it gave you a dictionary response of "weather" as an answer? Or with more snark, responded with, "I don't know. Look outside".

"What is the weather report for today/this week?" is a more accurate question, despite an annoying amount of verbosity. But answers are still given relatively. "Cloudy" could be an accurate answer, for now. But it will be "Sunny" this afternoon.

Some people will prefer a one word answer to "What's the weather?". Others, will want an hourly breakdown of the day displayed on their screen. Others, might prefer a week. It's hard to give an ideal response for every situation.

Ironically, if I say "Hey Siri, weather" I usually get what I need.

View on HN

> What if you asked Google "what's the weather?" and ... with more snark, responded with, "I don't know. Look outside".

Now that you mention it, I find it strange that voice assistants don't give natural responses when they encounter an error. It would make them seem more real, and it would be less frustrating.

When you ask a human what the weather is and they tell you to look outside, you don't try to rephrase the question in a way that will make them give you the right answer, you just realize this is not the way to get an answer and you look for another way.

Maybe this isn't the best way for it to work in this case, since there is a different thing you can ask to get the response you want, but maybe this would make interactions better if, say, the phone can't detect your location. "Where did you want the weather for? I think I'm lost."

Of course, the other problem is that if it gives the same response every time it'll get grating. The hundredth time you hear "Look outside," it has probably lost its charm. I wonder how possible it would be to generate responses that take into account all previous conversations, so that this doesn't happen.

Put another way, joking or snarky responses from a human aren't just jokes, they're a form of social communication. If voice assistants used those forms without intending to communicate the same thing, that would just be frustrating in a different way.

Or with more snark, responded with, "I don't know. Look outside".

One of my meteorologist friends always answers "What's the weather?" with, "The state of the atmosphere."

“What's the time?” “What's up?”

The possibilities are endless.

I've actually had this with Siri. I've asked about the wind and Siri gave me the definition of wind.

Other times it will tell me the wind speed.

Other times, for the same query, it will tell me the wind speed AND direction, which is what I want.

But it's always random what I get: wind speed, wind direction, a combination of both, or (occasionally) the definition of wind.

they spend a lot of time with these requests i think. “sing me a song”, “are you insane” etc

Reply on news.ycombinator.com