QUOTE(Andy214 @ Nov 2 2011, 05:39 PM)
Didn't read/follow the history of SIRI, but comparing with other Chat Bot available, it's consider more serious type. Actually, I'm not referring to voice recognition, but the AI logic to response based on the input given. The voice recognition I suppose it's job is to translate the input accurately (e.g. when you say weather, it should accurately translate it as "weather"); As for the accuracy, I believe it the logic maybe more complicated as in it doesn't just make up word by word, if you make a sentence, even some word in the sentence it may translate wrongly, but the AI logic should be able to make it into a more logical word that make sense, so probably that's why it's able to be more accurate.
Well, other than interpreting commands, SIRI uses Alpha Wolfram for general queries:
Alpha Wolfram. I am not sure what are the techniques it uses in speech recognition.
And yes, chatbots have been around since 1960s, most famous being ELIZA. As with many AI technologies, they no longer seem magical once you know how they work. You get a clue of how the sentence parsing is done when you see how SIRI ask for clarification to some queries i.e. "I don't know what you mean by .....".