蘇珊·班內特：遇見Siri的原聲

By+Emily+Anderson

Siri， the iPhones voice-activated virtual assistant， went from being a stunning technological advancement to a full-blown cultural icon after it was released along with the iPhone 4S in Oct. 2011.1 Most of us have asked Siri questions ranging from“Where is the nearest coffee shop？” to “What is the meaning of life？”（To which shes been known to answer， “42.”） So anyone who has ever queried Apples articulate iOS knows that her robotic responses can be rather mysterious.2 But when you sit down with Susan Bennett， the original voice of Siri， you find a much friendlier personality than any that iPhone has to offer. Having sung backup for the likes of Roy Orbison and Burt Bacharach， Bennett transitioned from singing to voice acting and has been the voice of ATMs， airport terminals，3 and informational systems ever since. She recently talked to us about her career， including how she gave a voice to the iPhone.

Hi， Im Siri

Susan， who wont reveal her age， lives in suburban Atlanta and has been doing voice work for over 40 years. She came forward and admitted that she was Siri to CNN， and though Apple has not confirmed it， audio forensics experts have reportedly concluded that Susan and Siris voices are 100 percent identical.4

Susan finally felt compelled to come forward when a story called “How Siri found its voice”by The Verge led people to believe that a woman named Allison Duffy was the voice of Siri.5 When Susan saw how fans were dying to6 discover the true identity of the iPhone assistant， she decided that it was finally time to put a face to the voice.

“It seemed like everyone was clamoring to find out who the real voice of Siri is， and so I thought， well， you know， what the heck？7 This is the time，”Susan told CNN. She also revealed in the interview that she spent four hours a day in July 2005 recording nonsensical phrases and sentences so that software engineers could pull out every vowel and consonant she spoke to construct an entire speech database.8

And so Siri was born.

Voice acting is a very specific talent. How did you decide to pursue it？

I started off as a singer. When I moved to Atlanta in the mid 1970s， I started performing in restaurants and clubs， but I also started to do a lot of studio work. One day， the voiceover talent9 didnt show up， so the studio owner， Pete Caldwell of Doppler Studios， said， “Susan， you dont have an accent. Come over here and read this copy.” So I did the spot and， being a freelancer， I was always looking for new avenues where I could find work.10 So I got voice coaching with Stuart Culpepper—who was a very well-known Atlanta actor—got an agent and started working.11

How did you become the voice of Siri？

The Siri thing surprised me. Ive worked for decades for GM Voices12， which does a lot of phone messaging. They came up with a proposal to read all these different sentences to be used for phone systems—this was only 10 years ago， but technologically speaking it was the Dark Ages13. The basic vocabulary of what became Siri was done over four hours a day， five days a week， for several weeks. I read thousands of phrases and sentences， and a technician went in after the recordings， extracted sounds， and reformulated new phrases and sentences， and those are what got programmed into the device.14 I didnt know that I was Siri until a fellow voice artist15 emailed me and said， “Were playing around with this new iPhone. Isnt this you？”

Is that an ongoing process or completely in your past？16

I did some updates for them， then the text-to-speech17 company wanted to put me under a five-year contract， but I was just at a point where I couldnt do any more of that work. Its extremely tedious and very hard on the vocal chords because you have to read things so consistently.18

Do people often recognize your voice？

Surprisingly not. A lot of places where youll hear my voice are informational places and people are just listening to the content， not what the voice sounds like. My speaking voice doesnt really sound like Siri. I have to get down into a different register and add a little bit of a robotic approach.19

Since thats behind you， what are you working on currently？

I still do a lot of messaging and narrations20. Like everyone else， I have to audition for commercials and things like that.21 One of the reasons it took me so long to reveal myself as the voice of Siri was because I knew it could go two ways： “Oh， shes Siri. Lets get her！” Or “Oh， shes everywhere. Lets not get her.” Being the original voice of Siri has been a real life lesson for me. Ive always been involved in performance and entertainment， but sort of behind the scenes. My favorite thing was being a backup vocalist instead of the lead.22 Fame was never important to me. The only thing I wanted was respect from my peers. So， the fame thing has been really strange for me because I was just doing my job.

Do you own an iPhone？

Yes. When I found out I was Siri， I thought， that makes sense. Were a completely Apple household.23 Im very interested in art and design and theres just nothing like an Apple product. Even the boxes are beautiful. But like everything else in life， being Siri had its positives and negatives. The positive was， of all these voices， they chose mine. The other side was that none of the original Siris were really compensated for the usage of our voices.24 We were paid pretty well for the original recordings. But considering that we were on millions of devices， we really werent compensated for that. From a financial point of view， it was probably not that great a deal.

How often do you ask Siri for advice？

I really dont talk to Siri. The only time I talk to my own voice is when I use the Waze25 app. The first time I spoke to Siri， she was rather rude. I said， “Hi， Siri. What are you doing？” She said， “Im talking to you.” Im kind of glad they changed all the original Siri voices because I really dont want to be the voice of Big Brother26.

1. 同iPhone4S于2010年10月共同發布之后，Siri作為iPhone的聲控虛擬助手，從單一的驚人技術進步發展成了一個成熟的文化符號。voiceactivated： 聲控的，通過聲音啟動的；virtual： 虛擬的；stunning： 令人驚奇的；full-blown： 成熟的，充分發展的；cultural icon： 文化符號，文化標志；release：（唱片、產品等）發布，發行。

2. query： 詢問；articulate： 發音清晰的，能說會道的。

3. backup： 伴唱，伴奏；the likes of： 像……（的人）；Roy Orbison： 羅伊·奧比森（1936—1988），美國著名歌手、搖滾音樂家，1998年獲格萊美終身成就獎；Burt Bacharach： 伯特·巴哈拉赫（1928— ），美國流行樂歌手、著名作曲家，一生共獲得過六次格萊美獎與三次奧斯卡獎；transition： （此處名詞動用）轉變，過渡；voice acting： 配音；airport terminal： 航站樓。

4. come forward： 主動站出來，自告奮勇；audio forensics：音頻取證，即通過科學的檢測方法來判斷一段聲音是否屬于某人；identical： 完全相同的。

5. The Verge網站上一篇名為《Siri是如何找到它的聲音的》的故事使人們相信Siri的聲音來自一位叫艾莉森·達菲的女士，這時蘇珊感到必須要主動站出來說明了。compel： 使不得不；The Verge： 美國一家科技媒體網站，成立于2011年，辦公地點位于紐約曼哈頓。

6. be dying to： 渴望。

7. clamor： 喧嚷，大聲地要求；heck： hell的委婉語，用以加強語氣或咒罵。

8. nonsensical： 無意義的；vowel： 元音；consonant： 輔音。

9. voiceover talent： 配畫外音的人，旁白解說。

10. spot：（電視或廣播中的）插播節目（或廣告）；freelancer： 自由職業者；avenue： 途徑，渠道。

11. voice coaching： 聲音訓練，聲音指導；agent： 經紀人。

12. GM Voices： 一家專為交互式語音應答、全球定位系統、遠程信息技術等提供語音提示服務的公司。

13. Dark Ages： 黑暗時代，本指歐洲中世紀早期（約476—1000），是戰爭頻繁、文化層次下降、社會崩潰的一段黑暗時期。這里指科技不發達、技術不成熟的落后時期。

14. 我讀了成千上萬個短語和句子，錄音結束后，技術人員走進來把聲音提取出來，重新組合形成新的短語和句子，然后把它們編寫進設備的程序中。extract： 提取，提煉；reformulate： 重新用公式表示，這里指重新制作；program： 為……編制程序。

15. voice artist： 配音演員。

16. 這是一個持續不斷的過程還是一次性完成的呢？

17. text-to-speech： 文本轉語音。

18. tedious： 枯燥乏味的，冗長的；vocal chords： 聲帶；consistently： 一致地，始終如一地。

19. 我必須把聲音降到另一個音域，然后再加上些機器人說話的方式。register： 聲區，音域；approach： 方法。

20. narration： 旁白，解說。

21. audition： 試鏡，面試；commercial： 商業廣告。

22. vocalist： 歌手；lead： 領唱，主唱。

23. 我們一家人都用蘋果產品。 household：一家人。

24. 不好的一面是，沒有一位Siri的原聲人士因為聲音被采用而得到應有的補償。compensate： 補償，酬勞。

25. Waze： 位智，一款基于社區、提供交通信息與導航服務的手機應用軟件。

26. Big Brother： 老大哥（認為能夠控制或監管其他人的人）。