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Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

cnbc.com

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Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#81

Post by sterlind »

tiew9Vii wrote: post #73
neya wrote: post #61

I don't think Apple has advancements in machine learning tech as much as its competitors. For example, take a look at how primitive Siri is. It struggles a lot in comparison to its competitors even for some basic commands. Or, take a look at Apple Music's recommendation system in comparison to Spotify's discover weekly. Now, take a look at Amazon and Google. They both have their own cloud infrastructure (which ironic…

From what I read Apple are taking a different approach? Google/Amazon are harvesting massive amounts of data and training against it and Apple are taking a privacy first approach saying you shouldn’t have to harvest lots of data for intelligent AI. Currently the harvesting data for models look to be working better for Google / Amazon with current technology. The question is how will Apple progress long term and given…

Are you suggesting Apple plans to do AI without harvesting data, or with transparent privacy controls on data? There's literally nothing for machine learning to learn besides harvested data. It's like suggesting that a power company is trying the strategy of using no wires for delivering electricity to houses..

I'd be excited if Apple found a way to trustlessly aggregate data and perform homomorphic training of their ML models, but they seem to be laying off that flavor of talent..

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#82

Post by a_imho »

Theodores wrote: post #15

I wonder if this autonomous driving thing has gone off the boil across the industry. Years ago fully autonomous was only just around the corner - as in five years away - but now nobody is talking of much more than improved lane keeping assist grade safety features, stopping if someone walks in front of the car rather than navigating a whole city including small streets. The scale of autonomous has been misleading. Ei…

There are too many cars already.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#83

Post by neuronic »

reindeerer wrote: post #67
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose they're getting downvoted because "why are you working on X when Y has problems" is kind of a silly argument. The problems with the butterfly keyboard design are almost certainly not a result of all the keyswitch engineers having been foolishly reassigned to work in the automotive group.

It's very much a focus and resource allocation problem. Double the number of engineers working on the keyboard and it doesn't happen

By this logic we should just triple the cancer researchers and then it doesn't happen

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#84

Post by cmpolis »

fipple wrote: post #62
groestl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another option, assuming core Apple processes don't need more funding: they could pay out that cash as dividends, and let the market think about the future (getting the money to companies who's core actually is about automotive AI, if investors actually think so).

The other way of thinking about it is that autonomous cars are so obvious and will eventually be so commodity that Apple not sticking their logo on this market would be about as dumb as them not making the bigger phones the market demanded.

  autonomous cars are so obvious and will eventually be so commodity
Apple's core business (smart phones) will be commoditized way before autonomous cars - we're already seeing smart phone improvements becoming more and more incremental, longer device lifetimes, people less willing to spend for the latest and greatest

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#85

Post by amrrs »

pentae wrote: post #6

When you can't make a laptop with reliable screens or keyboards, or an iMac lineup that has CPU's 2 generations behind.. Maybe it's time to shut down the stupid vanity projects and focus on your core business instead?

If so, then the irony is everyone complaining of Innovation is dead at Apple. Lot of OS improvements, especially for the older model devices. But does Apple get appreciation for that or for Airbuds?

And with multiple product lines, company can have multiple focus.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#86

Post by abalone »

neya wrote: post #61

I don't think Apple has advancements in machine learning tech as much as its competitors. For example, take a look at how primitive Siri is. It struggles a lot in comparison to its competitors even for some basic commands. Or, take a look at Apple Music's recommendation system in comparison to Spotify's discover weekly. Now, take a look at Amazon and Google. They both have their own cloud infrastructure (which ironic…

This is totally unfounded. Their market-leading bokeh camera effect is powered by a “state of the art image recognition system” including custom silicon (the “neural engine”).

Siri has gotten a lot better especially at natural language recognition.[1] The HomePod for example is exceptionally good at detecting Hey Siri commands while loud music is playing. That’s all local machine learning processing coupled with a great mic array. It’s more the breadth of services that are the issue, but that’s not machine learning.

The music recs.. well you don’t cite anything. I can say the weekly For You new music mix works good for me.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/siri-vs-alexa-vs-google-assistant/

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#87

Post by simonh »

sterlind wrote: post #81
tiew9Vii wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I read Apple are taking a different approach? Google/Amazon are harvesting massive amounts of data and training against it and Apple are taking a privacy first approach saying you shouldn’t have to harvest lots of data for intelligent AI. Currently the harvesting data for models look to be working better for Google / Amazon with current technology. The question is how will Apple progress long term and given…

Are you suggesting Apple plans to do AI without harvesting data, or with transparent privacy controls on data? There's literally nothing for machine learning to learn besides harvested data. It's like suggesting that a power company is trying the strategy of using no wires for delivering electricity to houses.. I'd be excited if Apple found a way to trustlessly aggregate data and perform homomorphic training of their…

It's actually not that Apple isn't collecting data sets, but they're doing so at a more measured pace by thoroughly anonymising it using differential privacy. If the AI needs to use raw personal data in it's calculations, that is done on the user's device to keep that information private.

This appears to be slowing them down compared to their competitors, but it's not clear how much as against them being a bit behind for other reasons.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#88

Post by nuthje »

paxys wrote: post #80
neya wrote: post #61

I don't think Apple has advancements in machine learning tech as much as its competitors. For example, take a look at how primitive Siri is. It struggles a lot in comparison to its competitors even for some basic commands. Or, take a look at Apple Music's recommendation system in comparison to Spotify's discover weekly. Now, take a look at Amazon and Google. They both have their own cloud infrastructure (which ironic…

Apple is far behind its competitors in pretty much every area except hardware. They are still terrible at running stable web services. There is a new critical bug or security hole in their OS every month. And all of their non-hardware offerings - Apple Maps, Apple Music, iCloud, iTunes, Siri etc. - range from very bad to average. IMO they need to be investing a LOT more on the software side of things if they intend t…

The major differentiator of Apple hardware is the software that runs on it. iOS and MacOS are basically unmatched by other offerings.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#89

Post by ghaff »

jug wrote: post #76
Gustomaximus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda feel cars are core to Apple. Essentially they are a screen company if you think about it. Their job is to own all your screens and make a quality experience across them, both the bonus of upselling services to said screens. A car dash is the last (others?) of the more used screens they haven't covered yet. So probably a market they dont want to miss out on, especially as it ties in with other areas so well li…

They do have Apple CarPlay though.

Which is actually pretty good. Had one in a rental a month or so back and I was, wow, a vehicle entertainment system that actually works rather than being primarily occupied with sucking the contacts off my phone.

Re: Apple Lays Off 200 Employees from Autonomous Car Unit

#90

Post by simonh »

paxys wrote: post #80
neya wrote: post #61

I don't think Apple has advancements in machine learning tech as much as its competitors. For example, take a look at how primitive Siri is. It struggles a lot in comparison to its competitors even for some basic commands. Or, take a look at Apple Music's recommendation system in comparison to Spotify's discover weekly. Now, take a look at Amazon and Google. They both have their own cloud infrastructure (which ironic…

Apple is far behind its competitors in pretty much every area except hardware. They are still terrible at running stable web services. There is a new critical bug or security hole in their OS every month. And all of their non-hardware offerings - Apple Maps, Apple Music, iCloud, iTunes, Siri etc. - range from very bad to average. IMO they need to be investing a LOT more on the software side of things if they intend t…

Sales levelling off != drying up.

Apple has always had problems with their online services, but iOS security is a problem? Compared to what, the dumpster fire over in Android?

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