Tag: AI

Chatbots Before Apple Intelligence Arrives

At some point several months in the future, Apple will make available some of the AI-powered features that it demo’d for its upcoming Mac, iPad, and iOS annual updates. Some of it has been around for years on other platforms, and some has been around on Apple’s own products. The biggest difference this time around is that some of the user requests will now have the option (at Apple’s and the users’ discretion) to be farmed out to ChatGPT, which is a welcome addition to Apple’s woefully inadequate Siri. Gone will be the days of interactions like “hey Siri, what’s the score of the Longhorns football game?” with the answer coming back “the Texas Longhorns defeated the Baylor Bears on…” which was in fact 3 games ago. Or, “I don’t understand the question, but I can Google it for you and display on your phone screen that is actually over on the counter where you can’t see the screen right now.” It should, in a few months, at least in theory, be able to supply requested information as intended by the requestor.

But what about the reason that many people actually already interact with chatbots, be they ChatGPT or Google Gemini or Microsoft Copilot? What about “chatting?” Is this something that Siri – sorry, “Apple Intelligence” – will be able to pull off come September 2024? Unlikely. Which is why Apple had to enlist OpenAI at the last minute, literally days or weeks before its huge annual dev conference where it answers to the world on all the progress it has (and hasn’t) made over the past 12 months with its various software platforms, to save the day with its ChatGPT. And soon enough, OpenAI will be joined by Google and its Gemini AI. Because these are companies with products that have been able to handle these types of interactions for years, while Siri has remained an embarrassing laughingstock. Yes, rather than being able to sheepishly say “our stuff isn’t ready yet and still won’t be by September, so we’ll use ChatGPT to temporarily fill the huge gaps while we polish it up for a few more months,” they went the opposite direction and informed us that not only were they so unprepared for the moment that they had to bring in OpenAI at the last minute, but that they will ALSO bring in its biggest rival, Google, to help shoulder the load. Unbelievably, even though nobody trusts OpenAI or Sam Altman with any of this – not even Microsoft, who handed him $10 billion to build out what he needed because THEY were so far behind, and on whose Azure cloud service all of OpenAI’s queries will run, to the chagrin of Apple – they feel like they have no other option available to them at this vital crossroads other than to deal with the ChatGPT devil. As to the timing of when Gemini will be added to the mix: “Nothing to announce right now” per Craig Federighi, because that’s how behind the eight ball they are with all of this. Couldn’t even come to terms of agreement in time for dubdub 2024, let alone build it all out and hook it all up.

Finally, are people actually missing out on anything by Apple not having any of this under their own childproof, kneecapped, Apple-branded tent? Absolutely not. You can do any of this on any computer today. Just go to Gemini or ChatGPT or Copilot on the web and you can do whatever is doable with any of these chatbots. Which is entertaining for all, productive for some, and indispensable for a sliver. Would it be nice if you could pull your iPhone out and tell it to tell you something that is actually informative and useful, rather than telling or typing on your computer? I suppose, but the jury is still out for now. My Pixel 8 with its new Gemini Nano model on device thanks to the latest Pixel feature drop a few days ago will be a fun testing ground for the utility of such a capability in my pocket (while my iPhone 14 Pro Max will have to wait until September or beyond to have any of these things on device – wait, check that – unless you have a 15 Pro, the most expensive version of the phone released 9 months ago, you will not have this on device EVER). But for me, when I am immersed in a chat with these humanlike info interfaces, I have no inclination to do it on a phone – which is why I have yet to try it out on the newly enabled Pixel 8. I want a screen, the bigger the better, to voice or type long, luxurious prompts which are edited on the fly, to consume the even longer and more luxurious responses to my queries, to click on source links, to look at images returned, to open up a new tab and riff on what I’ve just seen or heard or otherwise learned or been inspired by. I’m not doing that on my phone. And honestly, I don’t care if Google or Microsoft or OpenAI knows that I am interested in the Battle of Pavia or war tapestries from the 1500’s or El Escorial in Spain or blue zone lifestyles or Christian Dior’s life or whatever. As always, the more these companies know about my interests, the more useful they are in my life. “Here’s the information you asked about – also, the Pavia Tapestries are on display at the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth beginning this weekend, since you live about 20 minutes away from there.” Because the vast ocean of things I don’t know that I don’t know can be made smaller and smaller with every interaction of an intelligent helper that knows almost everything that is known and is only too eager to share it with me.

Look, I don’t trust any of these companies. No one should. Not Google, not Microsoft, not OpenAI, and certainly not Apple. All you need to do is look at how their stuff is made, where it’s made, where the money goes. And it’s a LOT of money, which is priority one for them. If you doubt that, then please tell me in what universe you foresaw Apple striking a deal with ChatGPT for its users’ chatbot requests. For companies of this size, there is an unyielding requirement that unpleasant actions must be taken in order to keep the money flowing in sufficiently mind-bending, breathtaking volume. So to say one is better than the other is at best meaningless, since they’re all bad; at worst, it’s just plain naive and dangerous to an unsuspecting public that is constantly programmed by billions of dollars in messaging from the companies every day. You just need to ask yourself if you are better off with, or without, the things that the companies try to sell you, then decide to transact or not. For every “Google is selling my interest in 16th century tapestry museum exhibits,” I will counter a “do you know how much more powerful Apple has single-handedly made China in China’s quest to dominate the world?” There are no good guys here; let’s stop acting like Apple pretending that they are only here for our benefit is anything other than their preferred method of scaring and extracting maximum financial resources from us.

Apple Intelligence and AI

Of COURSE Apple decided to commandeer the AI abbreviation. Of course. That’s what Apple does; it’s who they are.

Famously, Apple always “waits for new technologies to mature a bit” before “doing it better than everyone else.” Except, they don’t. They are usually late to the party, true. But what they actually come of the gate with is what they are “going” to have, eventually. Maybe. Or not. And it isn’t necessarily better than Google’s 3rd or 5th or 7th iteration of it by the time Apple announces their version 1 beta.

Anyone out there (outside of people who make a living buying Apple things and discussing them via writing, podcast, and/or Youtube) actually have the misfortune of plunking down a few grand on Apple’s VR/AR googgles? No? Neither did I. And those that did, wish they didn’t. Yes, they are cool. Amazing, even (from what I’ve read and watched and heard). But as was and still is abundantly clear to anyone not caught up in the ghost of Steve’s Reality Distortion Field, there is simply no use case for them at this time. Maybe not for any time, for that matter: by the time any developers decide that the market of thousands (not millions) of users would be worth addressing, something else will have supplanted it.

Microsoft learned this lesson the hard way over a period of over a decade with multiple iterations of its HoloLens goggles (which were equally jaw-dropping in their day). And I hate to admit it, but Facebook/Meta was actually smarter about it, because their founding DNA is not about R&D and doing things that have never been done in order to create a new world, unlike Microsoft and Apple; the force that drives their existence is eyeballs. How did they go about their goggles play? By making them as cheaply as possible, while still being “good enough” to get people to use them. And they actually have an ecosystem, thanks to that decision. Will you have your very reality altered after trying them on for the first time? No. But are you more likely to keep using them, rather than tossing them aside after the initial wow factor wears off and until devs actually bother developing for it? Yes you are!

Which brings us to Apple Intelligence. We all know better than to associate the word “Apple” with the term “AI,” despite Apple’s pathetic and cynical attempt (no doubt to be backed by tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars’ worth of advertising) to co-opt the ubiquitous acronym that has been in use for decades. Not to mention the fact that none of it actually, you know, EXISTS yet for non-beta testers, and won’t for several months. Even then, only a fraction of what was demo’d a few days ago will roll out; the rest will arrive incrementally over the next year, if at all. Not everything makes it to public release, after all; not just for Apple, but for any company.

Apple is dominant, and that won’t change in 2024 or ’25, perhaps not even in 2026. If they had waited yet another year to flail and jump onto the AI hype train, they may have been in trouble earlier than that, though I kind of doubt it. But for the first time since the unveiling of the iPhone back in 2007, they were (or at least ought to have been) scared of becoming irrelevant. Though I remain thoroughly unimpressed by the reality of what was shown in demo form at WWDC 2024, it was certainly enough to keep would-be competitors at bay, at least for a few more years. By then, by the time it becomes clear to all that Apple’s way cannot compete with Google’s and Microsoft’s, the phone itself may not matter as much, which will make the AI panic in Cupertino over the past 9 months seem like a walk in the (Apple) Park.