苏珊·班内特：遇见Siri的原声

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月共同发布之后，Siri作为iPhone的声控虚拟助手，从单一的惊人技术进步发展成了一个成熟的文化符号。voiceactivated： 声控的，通过声音启动的；virtual： 虚拟的；stunning： 令人惊奇的；full-blown： 成熟的，充分发展的；cultural icon： 文化符号，文化标志；release：（唱片、产品等）发布，发行。

2. query： 询问；articulate： 发音清晰的，能说会道的。

3. backup： 伴唱，伴奏；the likes of： 像……（的人）；Roy Orbison： 罗伊·奥比森（1936—1988），美国著名歌手、摇滚音乐家，1998年获格莱美终身成就奖；Burt Bacharach： 伯特·巴哈拉赫（1928— ），美国流行乐歌手、著名作曲家，一生共获得过六次格莱美奖与三次奥斯卡奖；transition： （此处名词动用）转变，过渡；voice acting： 配音；airport terminal： 航站楼。

4. come forward： 主动站出来，自告奋勇；audio forensics：音频取证，即通过科学的检测方法来判断一段声音是否属于某人；identical： 完全相同的。

5. The Verge网站上一篇名为《Siri是如何找到它的声音的》的故事使人们相信Siri的声音来自一位叫艾莉森·达菲的女士，这时苏珊感到必须要主动站出来说明了。compel： 使不得不；The Verge： 美国一家科技媒体网站，成立于2011年，办公地点位于纽约曼哈顿。

6. be dying to： 渴望。

7. clamor： 喧嚷，大声地要求；heck： hell的委婉语，用以加强语气或咒骂。

8. nonsensical： 无意义的；vowel： 元音；consonant： 辅音。

9. voiceover talent： 配画外音的人，旁白解说。

10. spot：（电视或广播中的）插播节目（或广告）；freelancer： 自由职业者；avenue： 途径，渠道。

11. voice coaching： 声音训练，声音指导；agent： 经纪人。

12. GM Voices： 一家专为交互式语音应答、全球定位系统、远程信息技术等提供语音提示服务的公司。

13. Dark Ages： 黑暗时代，本指欧洲中世纪早期（约476—1000），是战争频繁、文化层次下降、社会崩溃的一段黑暗时期。这里指科技不发达、技术不成熟的落后时期。

14. 我读了成千上万个短语和句子，录音结束后，技术人员走进来把声音提取出来，重新组合形成新的短语和句子，然后把它们编写进设备的程序中。extract： 提取，提炼；reformulate： 重新用公式表示，这里指重新制作；program： 为……编制程序。

15. voice artist： 配音演員。

16. 这是一个持续不断的过程还是一次性完成的呢？

17. text-to-speech： 文本转语音。

18. tedious： 枯燥乏味的，冗长的；vocal chords： 声带；consistently： 一致地，始终如一地。

19. 我必须把声音降到另一个音域，然后再加上些机器人说话的方式。register： 声区，音域；approach： 方法。

20. narration： 旁白，解说。

21. audition： 试镜，面试；commercial： 商业广告。

22. vocalist： 歌手；lead： 领唱，主唱。

23. 我们一家人都用苹果产品。 household：一家人。

24. 不好的一面是，没有一位Siri的原声人士因为声音被采用而得到应有的补偿。compensate： 补偿，酬劳。

25. Waze： 位智，一款基于社区、提供交通信息与导航服务的手机应用软件。

26. Big Brother： 老大哥（认为能够控制或监管其他人的人）。