111–120 of 267 posts
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…
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I seriously doubt that there is a significant number of customers that Apple attracts by being pro-privacy. On HN and similar environments, sure, plenty of people here value privacy, as do I. However, don't think for a second that the community on HN is in any way representative of Apple's customer base at all. Apple customers buy Apple products because they work well, look nice, are popular here in the US, etc., but…
I'm not so sure. It becomes a lot harder to explain Apple's very public focus on privacy features if you don't accept that it is a significant factor in smartphone buyers' decisionmaking.
> 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…
I love Apple's commitment to privacy, but the notion that privacy precludes powerful AI strikes me as a false dichotomy, and a cop-out. There must be some middle-ground.
Anonymous, transparent data-gathering perhaps? If Apple stripped data of any kind of personally-identifying information and allowed users to view all of the data that was being sent, it could be a good middle ground. However, the problem with that solution is that it's already possible (not easy) to identify users with very little information. Stripping out identifying information doesn't necessarily mean that the in…
Of course I may be completely misrepresenting this. I encourage you to go look up the relevant info from WWDC 2016 (I believe that's where they talked about it).
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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.
Me: Hey Siri, what cheese goes well with fruit? Siri: Here's what I found on the web for "What cheese goes well with fruit..." Me: Hey Google, what cheese goes well with fruit? Google: "Edam"
Would you have felt satisfied if you asked, "What wine goes well with dinner?" and heard "Zinfandel" in response?
An actually useful AI would ask you what kind of fruit(s) you want to pair it with. Not throw out an answer at random.
Me: Hey Siri, what cheese goes well with fruit? Siri: Here's what I found on the web for "What cheese goes well with fruit..." Me: Hey Google, what cheese goes well with fruit? Google: "Edam"
I assume you're trying to say that Google's answer is better, right? Google's certainly being more authoritative, but the answer to your question is actually fairly subjective, there's more answers than just "Edam", so IMO surfacing search results is better than just having Google pick one answer. Google's also been known to produce completely incorrect "authoritative" answers.
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What can Google do in the cloud that Apple can't do on the device?
The simplest example would be speech recognition. With the exception of Keyword Spotting Systems like Hey Siri or OK Google, it's currently practically impossible to implement larger vocabulary speech recognition on device.
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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…
You are making two assumptions that aren't necessarily true. First, you're assuming that you have control over what kind of information is being collected and shared, and you're assuming it's always good for you. Here's a fairly innocent scenario: if Amazon Echo can learn everything about you, they may discover that you're crazy about Paris and you have good income. Then they can sell this info to every travel websit…