Stephen Silver
Tom Gruber, an artificial intelligence expert who cofounded Siri, Inc., prior to its purchase by Apple, has announced his retirement from the company, becoming the last of Siri's three cofounders to leave Apple.
According to a report Wednesday night by The Information that was confirmed by Apple, Gruber has announced his retirement, and will now devote his energies to pursuing "personal interests in photography and ocean conservation."
The site reported that Vipul Ved Prakash, Apple's head of search, is also out.
Gruber most recently had been working as head of Siri's Advanced Development group; new hire John Giannandrea recently assumed leadership of the overall Siri team.
A computer scientist who spent the early part of his career in academia, Gruber did a stint at Stanford in the 80s and 90s, before entering the private sector as Chief Technology Officer of enterprise software firm Intraspect Software.
In 2007, Gruber became the cofounder of Siri, Inc., which was acquired by Apple three years later, with the Siri feature soon incorporated into the iPhone and later other Apple products.
In a TED conference talk in 2017 called "Our Robotic Overloads," Gruber predicted that while some fear artificial intelligence replacing humanity, it's better for the technology to augment humanity.
"What if you could have a memory that was as good as computer memory and is about your life? What if you could remember every person you ever met," Gruber said. "How to pronounce their name?" Their family details? Their favorite sports? The last conversation you had with them?"
The same website, The Information, published an overview in March of the Siri team's long history of acrimony and infighting, which has been linked to Siri falling behind Apple and Google's counterparts.
Siri's other cofounders were Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer. Kittlaus left Apple in 2011, while Cheyer exited in 2012. Kittlaus objected on Twitter back in March to statements made in The Information's piece about Siri.
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9 Comments
Siri should retire too. It’s actually no more than a 20-year-old legacy domain-based voice recognition 16-bit program which has no intelligence nor learning ability.
Sounds like Gruber was waiting for someone he could trust to take over for him, and that day has come. There's no doubt he was well-rewarded for his work on Siri, and I'm glad he's getting a chance to enjoy it.
In real-world, day-to-day use, it is my contention that Siri (especially on iOS) is competitive with the other voice assistants (though I acknowledge Google's is further along/better in many areas) . This is actually impressive when you remember that Siri is the only one not mining your entire life for sellable data about you (but this also means it is doomed to be third out of three forever, essentially).
I think Giannandrea and his team will nonetheless be able to make Siri even better despite the privacy restrictions. There are plenty of resources to help Siri be more predictive and learn without compromising security and privacy, and I'm confident he will find them.
In the penultimate paragraph there’s a typo; you need to change Apple to Amazon. It’s Amazon’s and Google’s counterparts to Siri that are ahead.
That Siri lags behind Google is not a dealbreaker for me.. iPhone has so many more features that are more important, such as advanced super-calibrated tech and smooth operation, consistency across apps, handover and continuity, airdrop & airplay, the whole eco-system basically, etc.. That they earn considerable margins allows them to pounce ahead where others can only try to imitate with cheap AI tricks (like bouquet)..
Even more importantly is that Apple is one of the very few ethical companies that has sufficient clout to make a difference in the world.. That alone takes any regret away that the price tag of their technology would induce..
As to Siri, I know in time it will be able to do the same things as Google.. Now that the AI team is reorganized and the infighting stopped hopefully, I think it will be sooner rather than later and who knows maybe Siri will leap ahead.. Also, imagine what an advanced AI can do with full 3D perception of the world, instead of being restricted to clever 2D pixel analysis and manipulations..
When asked about the rumour of a very generous severance package Gruber responded, "Sorry, I didn't quite get that."