Apple seeks human assistant to update Siri on cultural events

Apple is looking to hire a person to help its Siri assistant stay updated on all the non-traditional holidays, trending cultural happenings, and events that people might ask about.

The human assistant, to be named as the "Siri Event Maven," will work with the engineers and designers working on Siri "to provide strategic awareness of cultural happenings in the collective zeitgeist," Apple was quoted as saying to 9to5mac.com, on Tuesday.

"We're looking for someone to help us keep Siri up to date on all the various events happening around the world," according to the job description posted by Apple.

The human assistant would join the Siri team to "scour" social media for trends and happenings that Apple's voice assistant doesn't know about.

The role will also work with its analytics team to "understand current behaviour" and "identify events we may have missed," Apple noted.

Although Apple's Siri popularised voice assistants when it was first released on the iPhone in 2011, it has since lagged behind competitors like Google Assitant, and continues to face competition from new rivals like Amazon's Alexa and Samsung's Bixby Voice software.

But, with Apple looking to launch its new HomePod speaker -- its first standalone Siri device -- the iPhone maker wants Siri to be more up to date on pop culture and events, as it will bring the personal assistant into the living room.

--IANS

rt/gb/vt