Part 3/12:
Their goal was ambitious yet straightforward: enable computers to understand human words and respond meaningfully. During development, they grappled with linguistic ambiguities. For instance, the word "book" could refer to making a reservation or the physical object, while "star" might be a celestial body or a city name. Contextual understanding and disambiguation were significant hurdles, exposing the complexity of human language and world knowledge.
The original Siri was envisioned as a "do engine," capable of not only answering questions but executing actions—such as booking reservations or calling taxis—well before Uber's rise. This vision aimed to imbue machines with the ability to handle broad, cross-domain tasks seamlessly.