Accidentally famous: the story behind the original voice of Siri | Susan Bennett | TEDxFurmanU

With a strong personality and a sense of humor, Siri, and the voice behind her, give the story of voice acting and how Susan Bennett became the original voice of Siri. Susan's voice talent was suddenly a persona on devices worldwide, thrusting her into accidental fame. Susan tells of how Siri was created and how she dealt with the fear of living up to the expectations of who Siri is.

Susan Bennett is a singer, musician, and voice talent.  You may know her better as the original voice of Siri.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Well, Siri is quite
a character, isn't she?

She's perfect for this topic of "Go Big"

because it doesn't really get
too much bigger than Siri, right?

Well, Siri is also a bit mysterious.

So as the original voice of Siri,

I'm here today to take you
on a little trip behind the scenes.

Siri is a very interesting character.

Now, you probably
don't recognize my voice in her,

but do you recognize this?

(Siri voice) "What can I help you with?"

(Laughter)

"In a quarter of a mile,
make a left turn."

(Laughter)

"Shall I search the web?"

(Laughter)

"Never mind what I'm wearing."

(Laughter)

Many people ask a lot
of different questions of Siri,

and she does have
a very distinct personality.

She's a very interesting
character in her own right.

One of the most
interesting facts about her

is that she was not created by Apple.

She was actually created
by three engineers.

Apple, of course, developed her.

But one of the original
engineers was from Norway -

his name was Dag Kittlaus -

and he was responsible for naming Siri

because in Norwegian,
the name "Siri" means

"Beautiful woman
who guides you to victory."

(Laughter)

Of course, we know better -

she's the feisty chick
who tells you where to go.

(Laughter)

Now, Siri is a digital voice,

one of many that we have to interact with
on a regular basis, right?

They're everywhere:

phones, tablets, GPS systems.

They're in our cars

and often at the end
of phone calls we have to make.

(Robotic) "Thank you for calling.

I'm sorry, no one
can take your call at this time.

Please press 1 to leave a message,

or you may hold ...

(Laughter)

and hold ...

(Laughter)

and ...

how about some Kenny G?"

(Laughter)

Digital voices do come
from real live humans -

so far -

voice actors who read thousands
of phrases and sentences

to get every sound combination
in the language.

The first recordings I did
were in July of 2005 -

four hours a day, five days a week.

That's what became
the basic vocabulary for Siri.

Now, the process afterwards -

technicians, programmers,
and, of course, computers,

go into the recordings, extract sounds,

re-form them into new
phrases and sentences,

and these are what end up on our devices.

It's an amazing process
called "concatenation."

But the original phrases
and sentences that were created

were mostly for sound rather than content.

So as a result,

a lot of these phrases
were pretty wacky

and didn't necessarily
make a lot of sense.

Here's an example:

"Militia oy hallucinate

buckra okra ooze."

(Laughter)

"Say the zzzzzzz ding again."

"Cathexis fefatelly sexual ease stump."

(Laughter)

Yeah.

"Say the shrodding again,
say the shroding again,

say the shrading again,
say the shreeding again,

say the shriding again."

I did not make these up -
that's the sad part.

But you can see the importance
of the programmers in this process.

In fact, it's the programmers

who determine what Siri
and other digital voices say.

So in other words,
if you don't like what Siri says,

or maybe you get frustrated with her

and she doesn't understand you
all the time or something,

please do not blame Siri.

And especially,

do not curse at Siri.

(Laughter)

She is extremely sensitive,

and she knows where you live.

(Laughter)

Scary, isn't it?

Now, the original voice of Siri was iconic

because she was the first
concatenated voice that sounded human.

And you could interact with her -

she had a personality, a sense of humor.

And Steve Jobs was actually
very important in that role.

He was very involved
in the development of Siri,

and he embedded some
of his favorite comedy into the app.

For instance, if you were to ask Siri,

"What is the meaning of life?"

More often than not, Siri will say "42,"

which sounds kind of strange
and confusing.

But it's a reference to
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,"

a BBC Radio show

that was one of Steve Jobs' favorites.

Now, Apple continues
to develop Siri and change her.

Beginning with the OS 7 system,

all of the original Siri voices
worldwide were changed.

Now, the new voices
are a little more generic, maybe,

not quite as sassy in tone.

And they do what I call "text speech,"

which is speaking in abbreviations,
like "LOL" instead of laughing.

That's what Siri does - she says "LOL."

But how would Siri laugh?

You know, really?

(High-pitched) Ha ha ha ha ha.

(Normal) Ha ha ha ha.

(Low-pitched) Bwa ha ha ha ha.

(Laughter)

We certainly wouldn't want Siri
to laugh at us now, would we?

Although you know she does.

Most people can't really tell
from my regular speaking voice

that I'm the original voice of Siri,

and there are many reasons for that.

One is that after the recordings are done,

the voice is manipulated
to sound a certain way, audiologically.

Another reason is that during
the actual recording sessions,

I pitched my voice
a little bit lower to be Siri.

Now, that's what we voice actors do:

we make our voices appropriate
for whatever speech we're giving,

whatever script we're reading,

or for whatever character
we're trying to portray.

For instance, if you call your bank,
you might hear my voice say,

(Soothing) "Thank you
for calling your bank.

I'm sorry, your account is now overdrawn.

(Laughter)

Have a nice day.

Goodbye."

And then if you call Macy's,
you'll hear my voice sound like this:

(Cheerful) "Thank you for calling Macy's.

Your card is now activated
and ready for use.

Thank you for shopping with us."

Then if you go on the web

to a Christmas website
called ClausKids.com,

you will hear my voice as an old tree:

(Quavery) "Oh, I'm so delighted
you came to see me today.

Oh, I'm so happy you did,

and I hope you come back again soon."

(Laughter)

There's the little elf Star:

(Childlike) "Hello!

My name's Star.

What's yours?

I'm going up to
the North Pole later today.

Would you like to come with me?

You would?

Oh boy!"

(Laughter)

There's fortune-teller Madame Francesca:

(Mysterious) "Ah, come in,
I read crystal ball for you.

(Gasps)

Ah, you vill meet tall, dark stranger."

One of my all-time favorites, though,
is event planner Shaka Cohen:

(Gravelly) "Hello, darling.

I do it all - weddings,
bar mitzvahs, the whole thing.

Darling, call me."

(Laughter)

Can you imagine if Siri had Shaka's voice?

That would be a whole new
experience, wouldn't it?

(Gravelly) "Hello, what d'you want?"

(Laughter)

"What am I wearing?

What are you wearing?"

(Laughter)

Getting back to Siri -

she appeared on October 4th, 2011.

Yes, she's a Libra.

And the day that Siri appeared
is the day I found out she had my voice.

A fellow voice actor
sent me an email and said,

"Hey, we're playing with this
new iPhone app - isn't this you?"

And I went, "Really?"

Went on the site and listened,
and yup, wow, I had no idea.

And I had no idea
what to do with that information.

Part of me wanted
to shout it out to the world:

"Wow, my voice
was chosen for this thing!"

(Laughs)

And another part of me
just wanted to hide,

which I know may be hard for some of us

in this very fame-oriented
selfie culture to imagine.

But I'm basically an introvert,

and also, as a voice talent,
I was used to being invisible.

Suddenly, I'm this persona.

So it was very weird.

And also, anonymity is important
to voice talent in the digital age

because when we audition,

it's very much like
the television show, "The Voice,"

where the talent is judged
only on their voice and their performance,

not on how they look
or where they're from.

So, going back to the "Going Big" idea,
even if it's unintentional -

imagine I'm in my booth, at home,

recording these phrases
I thought was phone messaging,

getting paid my regular hourly rate,
which was not bad.

And then all of a sudden -

boom!

My voice is on millions of devices
all over the world.

I call it becoming "accidentally famous."

But when you think about it,

it's not all that different

from other things
that we all have to go through

at different times of our lives -

and that is dealing with the unexpected.

And how we humans hate change, don't we?

We don't really like dealing
with stuff we don't understand

or that we don't think is fair.

It took me two whole years
to decide to come out as Siri

because I was in a terrible quandary.

And do you know what fuelled
that quandary - can you guess?

The "F" Word:

fear.

(Laughter)

All I could think of was,

"How can I possibly live up
to the expectations

of what Siri would
look like and act like?"

It seemed impossible.

And then a phrase came to mind -

something that my former husband,

NHL hockey player
Curt Bennett, used to say:

"Do what you fear most."

Of course, he was wearing 90 pounds
of padding at the time when he said that.

(Laughs)

But it does sound kind of simple
and true, doesn't it?

"Yeah, do what you fear most, okay."

I'm not even talking
about hopping into a pool of sharks

or getting into the ring with Mike Tyson.

I'm talking about making
those scary decisions

that we all have to make in life:

"Should I leave this job
that I don't like?"

"Should I go back to school?

How will I pay for it?"

"What if I try and fail?"

Now, I know a lot of you
today here are students.

And you're at a time in your life

where you're having to make
a lot of pretty scary decisions.

"What should I major in?

If I major in that,
can I graduate and get a good job?"

Maybe some of you are even
contemplating a potential mate.

So let's just stop right there
for a second and think about that.

What are the fears and scary decisions
that you're all facing right this second?

And, more importantly,

how did they make you feel?

Maybe a little queasy?

I've done a lot of thinking about this,

believe me.

And I've come to the conclusion

that there is a way
to mitigate some of this fear -

and that is to have faith.

Faith that whatever decision we make,

it's just another step
on our individual life's path.

So if it turns out to be
a disappointing decision, unfulfilling,

we've learned what not to do.

If it turns out to be gratifying,
we can be happy, and ...

then move on
to the next scary decision.

Because that seems
to be what it's all about, right?

This one, big, long learning process
that continues throughout our lives.

Now, I had some help
with my scary Siri decision

because friends and especially
my husband and son

gave me a lot of encouragement -

harassment, okay -

(Laughter)

to "go ahead and do this," you know.

"Make that leap."

I can remember standing
in front of my husband,

just like this, I swear.

"Okay, let's go ahead and send the email
to get this thing started."

But once I had done that,
some good things started to happen.

First of all, immediately I felt better

because I'd faced the fear
and I'd taken some sort of action.

So that was a huge relief.

And then I started to do
a lot of really fun Siri-related things:

I made appearances on CNN,
The Queen Latifah Show, Showbiz Tonight;

I read the Top 10 List
for David Letterman.

I got a wonderful agent
in Los Angeles, Wes Stevens at Vox,

and I started to do
some speaking engagements.

You know what?

I was even invited to do a TED Talk.

(Laughter)

(Siri voice) "Talk about 'Going Big.'

LOL."

(Laughter)

Thank you.

(Applause)