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Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#91

Post by gls2ro »

NumberSix wrote: post #40

Regarding privacy, when human beings meet a new person, they do not need tons of data about that person to understand their spoken language. We learn English or any other language once and then rarely need to adapt to new people, unless they have a strong accent or speak a truly different dialect of the language. This demonstrates that the much touted speech recognition technologies from Google, Amazon, and Apple do…

I am not an expert in AI, ML or any other thing like his.

But related to

> Regarding privacy, when human beings meet a new person, they do not need tons of data about that person to understand their spoken language.

I think that we understand context and symbols and syntax because we used it/learned it before.

So when I meet a new person I use previous cultural/language learnings to understand the new person. Not just dictionary.

And even if I met a person who speaks a new language, I might understand after a period the words but still I use logic and symbols to get that when that person points to ice and says something that something means ice. And this I think is possible because of some previous knowledge on how to interpret the interaction that I discovered before about this context.

I think it is the same with Assistants: there is an advantage in being able to access and process large amount of communication so that you can infer meaning or predictions.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#92

Post by CaptSpify »

abritinthebay wrote: post #88
baddox wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have knowledge and control over who gets your information and how they use, well that's effectively the definition of good privacy.

But you don't. You have only control over the former. History has shown us time and time again you don't have control over the latter.

How do you have control over the former?

Data is being gleamed about you even if you aren't using their products, and it's being used by companies you haven't authorized all the time.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#93

Post by santaclaus »

orthoganol wrote: post #27

Well yes, - they don't publish, they don't have a reputation (no teams like FAIR, DeepMind, MetaMind, MSFT AI, etc.), they don't attract the top AI talent, and anecdotally, they don't even even know how to hire for AI (had a brilliant colleague working in AI turned away because he didn't know some facets about the Python language when they hit him with Leetcode whiteboard questions; IMO they aren't in a position with…

> had a brilliant colleague working in AI turned away because he didn't know some facets about the Python language when they hit him with Leetcode whiteboard questions

I mean, to be fair, isn't that every company? Google pulls the same sort of nonsense.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#94

Post by s73ver »

__jal wrote: post #20
macinjosh wrote: post #3

I am an Apple fanboy but I am also a privacy fanboy. As AI, IoT, and consumer tracking continue to invade our daily lives I think Apple will continue to do quite well if they maintain there pro-privacy heading. Privacy is a feature, it's something people want, and unfortunately its becoming a luxury. That is something that attracts Apple's customers.

Can't claim to be a fanboy, but I am a longtime user[1], and this is the primary reason I stick to them for my phone. I frankly can't imagine using Android the way I use my Iphone - the privacy invasions considered acceptable are well in to the "no go" range for me, before even getting to the malware that pass for "free apps". If I were somehow forced to use Android, I'm pretty sure I'd treat it as an adversarial dev…

"[1] I'm becoming less of a fan, as MacOS becomes "cloud aware" and less of a Unix workstation."

How is it becoming less of a Unix workstation? It can still do all the Unixy stuff it could before.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#95

Post by spike021 »

wklauss wrote: post #8

> Six years later, the technology giant is struggling to find its voice in AI. I know that this is the most common approach to the situation but the article -as many other articles that have argued this before- provides no proof other than analysts speaking in broad strokes. I use Siri, Alexa and Assistant several times a week if not everyday and I'd hesitate a lot before saying that Siri is behind. Alexa is more res…

I've been rather surprised how well Siri works.

Sometimes I'll be watching a baseball game in my living room with the volume pretty dang loud. The sound of the crowd in the background is almost like a static noise, and then you have the yellers, as well as the commentators speaking clearly, distinctly, and loudly. Then I use Siri to set a timer for something I'm cooking, or to "Call X person on speaker." and it picks up my voice without any hesitation or anything, and gets the words exactly right.

Definitely accurate.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#96

Post by eridius »

et-al wrote: post #77
virmundi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if they've fixed this, or if was just me not working the phone right, but Disney's park maps kept tracking when the app was closed.

> Disney's park maps kept tracking when the app was closed Closed or in the background? I was under the impression (in iOS 10 and earlier), that "Always" meant anytime the app was open, and "While in use" is only when the app is in the foreground. So if an app has "Always" on for its Location Services, it will stop tracking when I swipe up and quit it. If I've been incorrect this whole time, please pass the tinfoil.

You're correct. Manually killing an app from the recent apps list will stop it from doing background processing (e.g. tracking location). I'm not sure if they'll be allowed to start again if e.g. they receive a silent push, and I'm also not sure if they're allowed to handle geofences, but besides those two questions, killing the app stops it tracking you.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#97

Post by abritinthebay »

paul9290 wrote: post #17
wklauss wrote: post #8

> Six years later, the technology giant is struggling to find its voice in AI. I know that this is the most common approach to the situation but the article -as many other articles that have argued this before- provides no proof other than analysts speaking in broad strokes. I use Siri, Alexa and Assistant several times a week if not everyday and I'd hesitate a lot before saying that Siri is behind. Alexa is more res…

I have used Siri faithfully from 2011 til about the start of this year where I bought a google home. Siri is flat out dumb and frustrating to use comparatively in terms of only understanding 85 percent of my queries vs. Google Home understanding 97 percent. It seems to me Apple has not taken all their hordes of cash and used it to up the AI game. Looks like they are solely focused on the present while competitors are…

I feel this fundamentally misunderstands how each of their AI's work.

You're describing an interface problem. Google's AI is extremely good at recognizing speech in comparison to Siri but that's a wholly different thing to deep understanding.

Siri is a more advanced AI in many ways due to it's understanding of intents. Google's is much more command based (under the hood). However Apple's speech recognition is letting it down here. Intents are a much more sophisticated way to interact with an AI than Google's command based structure but they are correspondingly more complex to integrate and you realistically need to infer things more from the user (which Apple needs to get better at).

I don't disagree that Apple needs to step up their game with how people interact with Siri, but it's a perceptual issue with the interface not with the underlying AI.

(source - have discussed these exact issues with one of the founders of Nuance).

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#98

Post by [deleted] »

s73ver wrote: post #90
pwython wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the few in the "tech world" that isn't so much pro-privacy. Google can read my email, Apple can track my movements, my Amazon Echo can even listen in when it wants. The end result is a huge benefit to me. How is any AI supposed to know what I want, if I try to be an anonymous user? I prefer targeted ads. I prefer submitting my information to "robots" in the hopes that my user experience is tailored to what…

Except Apple shows that you don't have to sacrifice privacy. Just about all of their ML stuff happens on the device. So you can have things that are quite similar to what Google gives you, without giving up that privacy.

[deleted]

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#100

Post by CaptSpify »

LA_Banker wrote: post #74
pwython wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the few in the "tech world" that isn't so much pro-privacy. Google can read my email, Apple can track my movements, my Amazon Echo can even listen in when it wants. The end result is a huge benefit to me. How is any AI supposed to know what I want, if I try to be an anonymous user? I prefer targeted ads. I prefer submitting my information to "robots" in the hopes that my user experience is tailored to what…

I'm ceaselessly amused by the folks fearing Amazon Echos or Google Homes as though they're constantly listening microphones sent to the NSA. As though we don't already carry devices on our person everywhere we go that have mics (smartphones). Also, while we trade our privacy to Google (or Amazon, or whomever) in exchange for customization and convenience (a social contract I'm generally happy to sign off on), those c…

> those companies have even more incentive to keep our data safe.

Then why aren't they doing it, and why aren't they informing us when breaches happen?

I absolutely think providing that data should be voluntary. If you want to send it to them, go ahead! But in many ways it's not. I can't remove my data from those companies, nor can I control what they do with it, and that's a serious problem.

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