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How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

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Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#61

Post by c0g »

ThomPete wrote: post #54
throwanem wrote: post #12

I like how Apple can't win here. If they publish, they aren't doing anything new and they haven't innovated since Steve died, and they should really just give up because there's obviously no point to anything they do and hasn't been since 1997. If they don't publish, they're evil secretive bastards who don't contribute to the ML community and probably drown puppies or something because who knows what goes on behind c…

There is only one way to win and that is to publish. Innovation in this field doesn't happen in a vacuum but by multiple simpler components combine in ever more emerging complexity.

Apple can free ride on other people publishing and synthesise in house. The field might lose out (but there are always free riders) but does Apple?

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#62

Post by c0g »

spitfire wrote: post #40
c0g wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comment - a few thoughts: AlphaGo is impressive no doubt but has DeepMind done anything really key to Google's bottom line yet? A lot of the really sweet stuff they do doesn't have immediate commercial utility that I can see. Apple might be waiting to strike once Google has found the killer app (remember they're never really first at anything and focus holistically on the product). Apple is benefiting from other…

So apple is choosing to play a prisoners dilemma game and defecting every time.

Yeah Tim Cook is the all defector.

http://exomemory.wikia.com/wiki/All-Defector

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#63

Post by sangnoir »

IBM wrote: post #43
Smerity wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article lacks any real evidence they're ahead though, which is essentially equivalent to "behind" if (a) the majority of the advances are democratized by your competitors and (b) you lack the ability to attract top tier talent. If AI/ML is an existential threat to Apple, then this article doesn't provide any comfort beyond being a PR puff piece. The talent war for AI/ML is truly insane. Given that the top resear…

If what AI/ML talent wants is to do research and draw a Silicon Valley salary then you're right, they're not going to work at Apple. Some people don't want to work at Apple because they can't describe their job on their LinkedIn pages or tell their friends and family about what they do. Others don't like that they have to buy their own meals at Caffe Macs. I don't think Apple worries about this too much. What they do…

> If what AI/ML talent wants is to do research and draw a Silicon Valley salary then you're right, they're not going to work at Apple.

Let me simplify that further: "If what AI/ML talent wants is to publish...then you're right, they're not going to work at Apple". Money may or may not be a factor, but Apples secrecy won't allow the talent to publish their research. Given that AI is highly driven by research right now (no "if" about it), what talent would want to work somewhere where they can't publish research papers?

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#64

Post by ucaetano »

davidcgl wrote: post #26
c0g wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comment - a few thoughts: AlphaGo is impressive no doubt but has DeepMind done anything really key to Google's bottom line yet? A lot of the really sweet stuff they do doesn't have immediate commercial utility that I can see. Apple might be waiting to strike once Google has found the killer app (remember they're never really first at anything and focus holistically on the product). Apple is benefiting from other…

DeepMind reduced Google data center cooling bill by 40% in an experiment. If this effect is real, it probably more than justified the $500m tag Google paid to acquire DeepMind. Google might not have come up with a killer app, but perhaps the real killer app is not in the consumer space. https://deepmind.com/blog https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12126298

Now extrapolate that to all datacenters in the industry.

To all factories, power plants, homes, etc.

Imagine you can cut the cooling/heating bill of 1/2 the industrial world by 40%.

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#65

Post by Chronic9q »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #32
CogDisco wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were serious, they'd provide objective evidence for their claims. Papers, source code, numbers. Not "we have the biggest, baddest GPU farm" and refuse to say any more as policy. Under this veil of secrecy and doubletalk, all they have is marketing: Trust the brand rather than objective reality. Many other companies are mature enough to show their cards but Apple keeps declaring victory. Apple writes its own n…

> If they were serious, they'd provide objective evidence for their claims. Papers, source code, numbers. Not "we have the biggest, baddest GPU farm" and refuse to say any more as policy. But why? Who cares about papers, source code or numbers beyond the tiny segment that HN caters to? Apple has always been about the user experience. When they discuss a vast majority of prior accomplishments they discuss them, many t…

> But why? Who cares about papers, source code or numbers beyond the tiny segment that HN caters to?

I don't know, say, the thousands of future engineers and researchers, that, you know, make the product?

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#66

Post by devy »

There are a lot of criticisms here about Apple's secretive AI/ML development practices. But it's not unusual to Apple's long culture heritage of secrecy.

From consumer's perspective, I applaud their firm believe of customer privacy as well as pioneering consumer products based on AI/ML development AND with differential privacy in mind.[1][2]

[1] http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/6/20/the-technology-beh...

[2] http://www.imore.com/our-full-transcript-talk-show-wwdc-2016...

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#67

Post by jaegerpicker »

soperj wrote: post #49
k-mcgrady wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "If they were serious, they'd provide objective evidence for their claims." Why do they need to? At the end of the day all that matters is that the products they ship are good and aren't lacking compared to competitors. The only reason they would provide evidence for what they claim other than that is to appease people calling bullshit and unless it's effecting sales no company should stoop to that.

A lot of their products are lacking though. Maps is awful. So is Safari.

It's generally helpful if you don't trot out 2-3 year old claims. Both maps and Safari have had massive changes recently and both are if not on par with other companies it's really close. Apple has had issues with OS X reliability and music can be truly bad at times and iCloud (especially sync) is almost embarrassing. I'm a huge Apple fan and an iOS developer but they aren't without fault but if you are going to call them out make it current.

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#68

Post by sangnoir »

atonse wrote: post #57
sangnoir wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like how Apple can't win here. They have themselves to blame, at least partially since they painted themselves into a corner. A while back they went on a media offensive proclaiming how "data-mining" the user's information is bad, and they won't stand for it in the interest of privacy... As it turns out, reality is a little more nuanced, and a bit of applied AI is in fact good for the user experience. e.g. your p…

I'm not so sure you actually read the article. It explicitly talks about how they've accomplished a lot of this without violating their users' privacy. And that the fact that they deny AI researchers big hoards of data, hurts their reputation in the AI community, because most AI researchers want mountains of data.

> It explicitly talks about how they've accomplished a lot of this without violating their users' privacy.

My question are: A. who is violating user's privacy, B. How is Apple any different[1] from them, besides proclaiming they aren't violating privacy?

1. Some data is collected from the device and sent to a server for processing. Until Apple does something truly radical (like 100% encrypted information that is processing on-device), they are just like every other company that opens up user's data to 'ex-filtration' by third parties.

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#69

Post by jomamaxx »

CogDisco wrote: post #27
throwanem wrote: post #12

I like how Apple can't win here. If they publish, they aren't doing anything new and they haven't innovated since Steve died, and they should really just give up because there's obviously no point to anything they do and hasn't been since 1997. If they don't publish, they're evil secretive bastards who don't contribute to the ML community and probably drown puppies or something because who knows what goes on behind c…

If they were serious, they'd provide objective evidence for their claims. Papers, source code, numbers. Not "we have the biggest, baddest GPU farm" and refuse to say any more as policy. Under this veil of secrecy and doubletalk, all they have is marketing: Trust the brand rather than objective reality. Many other companies are mature enough to show their cards but Apple keeps declaring victory. Apple writes its own n…

"If they were serious, they'd provide objective evidence for their claims."

I disagree - they are not making any claims that they care to be validated. They don't care to be 'known as #1' in whatever field. We can believe what we want as far as they are concerned.

'If they are serious' - they will make this technology work to make better experiences for end consumers.

'The proof is in the pudding' - so to speak.

I for one don't doubt that their AI 'increased the intelligence of Siri'. But I also don't care about Siri and find it basically useless. AI has different kinds of impacts in different domains. If they make better experiences for us - all the power to them. If not, then not ...

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#70

Post by throwanem »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #60
soperj wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of their products are lacking though. Maps is awful. So is Safari.

Safari is my browser of choice and I have no issues with it (I much prefer it over Chrome). Maps has occasional issues but it's a solid product now. I use it for walking and transit directions and can't remember the last time I had to fall back on Google Maps.

Same here. Maps works when I'm three quarters blasted, trying to get to a train station I have no idea how to find from a bar I've never been to before, and that has to count as some kind of win.
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