The turtle-necks over at Apple HQ have recently posted a job listing to find a new speechwriter for Siri, the personal assistant application that runs on the more recent models of the iPhone.
The listing goes:
We’re looking for a uniquely creative individual to help us evolve and enrich Siri, our virtual personal assistant. Siri’s known for ‘her’ wit, cultural knowledge, and zeal to explain things in engaging, funny, and practical ways. The ideal candidate is someone who combines a love for language, wordplay, and conversation with demonstrated experience in bringing creative content to life within an intense technical environment.
And here are some of the requirements:
Develop and write original dialog to support new Siri capabilities; refresh and refine existing Siri dialog.
Work closely with interaction designers in formulating utterances, and in specifying them and their parameters for engineering staff.
Ensure the consistency and quality of Siri dialog from all sources. Help the Siri team evolve Siri as a distinct, recognizable character.
So what this boils down to — for those of us not in the market for a new job in speech writing — is that Siri is getting a personality. She’ll have quips, she’ll have jokes, she’ll have comebacks. Some might even say that she’s getting sassier, but what does a sassier Siri mean for you? Your very own pocket-sized Algonquin Round Table? An electronic friend to supply you with endless snaps in Z formations?
Let’s look into the future and find out: