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1989 — If you consider yourself an early adopter in the tech world, or even just pretty tech savvy, chances are you use a digital personal assistant.
Maybe you've even come to rely on Alexa or Siri on a daily basis. But chances are also pretty good that you often get frustrated by your little robot assistant. I know I do. Siri pretty frequently misunderstands me, and Alexa often can't figure out what light I want turned off. But when I stop to think about all the technological advancements that have made these virtual assistants possible at all, I'm pretty amazed.
So what would Siri have been like long before Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone? Back in the early days of the internet and personal computer use?
The answer is in this video.
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Mirai Nagasu's triple axel was historic and impressive, but this one moment from the 1998 Olympics is going viral this week and for good reason.Full disclosure: This video IS a parody. Siri obviously didn't exist in the 1980s. But if it had, we probably would've had quite a few of the same frustrations we have with it now.
The video is a fake instructional video demonstrating how someone could get SIRI, a "speech interpretation and recognition interface" program, on their computer. There are about 100 complicated steps, but eventually, you get to ask SIRI questions like "What is 2 times 2?" and listen to a very robotic voice responding. As long as you asked the right question, that is, and spoke in a perfectly clear voice.
Despite being a parody, the video feels so accurate it's hilarious. If you ever had to watch instructional tech videos in the '80s and '90s, this video will be a nice little throwback and should also make you appreciate how fast our computers are today.
