Apple is looking to add writers to the Siri developing team

[RaduTyrsina]

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According to a new job posted on the social media site LinkedIn, Apple is apparently looking to add some people to its Siri development team. Here’s an extract of the ad:

“Someone who combines a love for language, wordplay, and conversation with demonstrated experience in bringing creative content to life within an intense technical environment.”

The perfect candidate would also need to possess excellent writing skills and be able to prove his/her experience in “writing character-driven dialog”. The applicants will also have to demonstrate knowledge of another language. Basically, the company is looking for somebody who will be in charge of helping Siri get smarter, by nourishing “it” with culture, knowledge, thus trying to develop a witty or funny side to the application.

It is said that Apple’s virtual assistant has a connection with a Pentagon artificial intelligence research project, but that doesn’t mean the algorithms working within can’t be perfected. There are, of course, still a lot of bugs in the way Siri operates, but these flaws could be easily overseen provided that the virtual assistant “personality” is developed carefully. Siri belongs to the social world and empowering it with charm, wit and the ability to be funny would certainly distract the user.

The approach has been used before by winners of the Loebner Prize. In this contest, chatbots must convince judges that they are human. To do this, they will approach the problem by developing a solution based on humor and mimicry and not actual learning.

Source: Technology Review