In used to be that I avoided using Siri except in a few specific cases while driving:
- Read and respond to text messages.
- Map driving directions.
- Dictate a note.
If I ventured outside these tasks, the experience was unreliable and frustrating. So I just haven’t bothered to use Siri for much.
Now that you can forward questions to ChatGPT, I’m using Siri + ChatGPT in the car much more often. As one example today:
ask ChatGPT what’s a good place for lunch two hours from Washington, D.C. on the way to Roanoke, Virginia?
Siri is hopelessly confused if it tries to answer this question on its own. It sees “lunch” and “Washington, D.C.” and gives up trying to understand the rest. But adding the “ask ChatGPT” prefix is magic, transforming the query into a useful conversation and answer.
It’s harder to verify hallucinations while driving, of course. For me, using AI is iterative, going back and forth and fine-tuning what I’m looking for. Even imperfect, though, getting a taste of this functionality just makes me wish Apple would let us use ChatGPT’s voice mode as a native replacement for Siri. I would use it for all sorts of things on solo road trips when I want context for everything around me.
