Siri is a built-in, voice-controlled personal assistant for Apple users. Siri’s main aim is to help you get things done in a jiffy. Talk to her and it will perform a variety of tasks at your command. It carries out several basic tasks like making calls, setting alarms, changing the settings of your phone or doing mathematical calculations. Not only this, it goes a step further and can also help you reserve a table your favourite Chinese restaurant, send a birthday message to someone right at the strike of 12, create music playlists and even tell you whether it’s going to rain.
 

How does Siri work?

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
It’s a system that is designed to listen, comprehend and process user’s requests and if possible, deliver a suitable result. It seems quite simple and straightforward as a user; however, before Siri responds to your commands it goes through four levels which are discussed below:
 

Level 1- Voice Recognition

This stage seems basic from a layman’s perspective, but this is often considered the most difficult and complicated part of the entire process. After all, Siri’s most important task is to understand what exactly needs to be done.
When you speak to Siri, it records the frequencies and sound waves from your voice and translates them into a code. This unique code is then sent to the servers.
 
 

Level 2- Connecting to Apple servers

After collecting your command and subsequently converted into a code, Siri sends it to Apple servers for processing. Therefore, an Internet connection is mandatory for Siri to function.
In the Apple servers, the unique code then undergoes different flowchart branches to find out a suitable solution. The servers already have a huge database of questions and their probable answers, so there is usually no problem in fetching the answer to common questions, like ‘What’s the best place to stay around here?’ or ‘Will it be hot today?’
 
 

 
If somehow Siri fails to understand any of your commands, then the entire query is trashed and Siri presents you with the standard response: “Would you like to search the web for that?”
 

Level 3- Understanding the command

This is clearly the most demanding part. At this point, Siri tries to understand what it is that you want to be done. However, if you’re an iPhone user you already know that Siri is pretty intuitive to understand the command.
For instance, you would understand that I wanted to have a pizza, whether I said, ‘I’m in the mood for a pizza today’ or, ‘If only I could have a large pizza right here!’ However, a machine wouldn’t be clever enough to understand what I’m trying to express.
 
 

Level 4- Producing results

Siri has to communicate with other apps on your phone to provide the desired results to you. For example, if you want to set a reminder, Siri will have to ‘talk’ to the Organiser app to set a reminder at the desired date and time.
After going through all the above steps, Siri presents the result either by speaking to you or flashing a text to let you know the status of the task you asked it to perform.
 
Also Read: How to Disable Siri on iOS 10
 
It’s impressive to know that how we have succeeded in making machines that interact with humans and like humans. It is certainly undeniable that Artificial Intelligence and Siri, in particular, has positioned itself to revolutionize the future – right in the palm of your hand!
 
Also Read: Awesome Things Siri Can Do For You