Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 217 posts

Re: Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

#51

Post by stefco_ »

godelski wrote: post #40
jointpdf wrote: post #34

Setting aside all the other work Apple is doing in this area, can someone explain why iMessage autocorrect is unacceptably bad (to put it diplomatically) in the era of weapons-grade language models? Its behavior is totally bizarre. It’s like an underpowered chess engine that makes flagrant blunders: capitalizing random words in the middle of a sentence (rock -> Rock), the context sensitivity of an actual rock, forcin…

This also happens to me on Android. Working in ML, this is something to point to when people hype it up. We've come a long way, but we still got a long way to go. As for specific errors, does rock capitalize when "the" is before it? (The Rock) The models learn from how users write. But when you think about it, it is actually fairly difficult to predict what words are going to be, you can test it with your friends. Ha…

Predicting subsequent words is hard for humans, but correcting typos is easy. I've turned off autocorrect completely because my typos are always immediately decodable to their human audience, moreso than Apple's seemingly random modifications.

Re: Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

#52

Post by jolux »

llampx wrote: post #50
jolux wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people have underrated the benefits Apple reaps in this area from being so far ahead in chip design and controlling their hardware. As regards to successfully productizing ML I’ve recently become convinced that Apple has been more successful at it than Google so far. Translation was already well within Google’s wheelhouse and they had been doing it for years, and their work with cameras is going to i…

Even there, Google is hindered by the fact that it is so bad at hardware. The Pixel's camera lead is not as much as it used to be, and now Apple is ahead on video. The newest phone from Google uses the same sensor as the Pixel 2, whereas others have moved onto bigger sensors with quad-bayer filters.

Yep.

Re: Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

#53

Post by jointpdf »

godelski wrote: post #40
jointpdf wrote: post #34

Setting aside all the other work Apple is doing in this area, can someone explain why iMessage autocorrect is unacceptably bad (to put it diplomatically) in the era of weapons-grade language models? Its behavior is totally bizarre. It’s like an underpowered chess engine that makes flagrant blunders: capitalizing random words in the middle of a sentence (rock -> Rock), the context sensitivity of an actual rock, forcin…

This also happens to me on Android. Working in ML, this is something to point to when people hype it up. We've come a long way, but we still got a long way to go. As for specific errors, does rock capitalize when "the" is before it? (The Rock) The models learn from how users write. But when you think about it, it is actually fairly difficult to predict what words are going to be, you can test it with your friends. Ha…

The most disruptive errors are those that could seemingly be cleaned up with some simple rules (e.g. if the word is in the dictionary, then don’t change it). This doesn’t seem like a “state of ML” issue—the Gmail text completion is annoyingly good, and you-know-who can compose soliloquies and smut with uncanny skill.

And no, I don’t often discuss The Rock, but if I did (“Do you smell what the r...”) I'd expect it to finish the alley-oop. I do not want to go Rock climbing.

iMessage is software that is used billions and billions of times a day, and half the time it feels like verbal jiu-jitsu (“jiu-hursuit” according to autocorrect just now) with Dory the fish.

Re: Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

#54

Post by stedaniels »

jointpdf wrote: post #34

Setting aside all the other work Apple is doing in this area, can someone explain why iMessage autocorrect is unacceptably bad (to put it diplomatically) in the era of weapons-grade language models? Its behavior is totally bizarre. It’s like an underpowered chess engine that makes flagrant blunders: capitalizing random words in the middle of a sentence (rock -> Rock), the context sensitivity of an actual rock, forcin…

I've recently switched back to iOS and hoped this behaviour was temporary as it got to learn my swiping style. Gboard on Android is almost perfect.

Re: Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

#56

Post by IshKebab »

jolux wrote: post #45
Veedrac wrote: post #26

Apple's AI work is decent for what it is, and their AI hardware is fine too, but so much of this article is just weird. It starts by talking about how until recently Apple wasn't doing AI work where it needed to be. Then there's the weird excerpt where he claims Google is “not known for shipping consumer experiences that are used by hundreds of millions of people.” The author then raises the legitimate point that AI…

Apple’s chips are way better so whether they’re doing more locally or not they have the headroom to do a lot more. I would agree with that characterization of Google. They have a very small handful of successes and an enormous pile of failures that they’ve discarded. They give every impression of not really knowing what to do. I think Giannandrea was also referring specifically to the kinds of experiences Apple can p…

What AI failures have Google had? Google Home is much better than Siri or Alexa. The camera feature in Google Translate works really well. Their new auto subtitles on Android work really well. Searching photos for objects works really well.

The only thing I can think of is that think they demoed that would call restaurants to book them for you, but that was clearly highly experimental, and it's not like Apple has done that.

Re: Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

#57

Post by [deleted] »

nfg wrote: post #46
jointpdf wrote: post #34

Setting aside all the other work Apple is doing in this area, can someone explain why iMessage autocorrect is unacceptably bad (to put it diplomatically) in the era of weapons-grade language models? Its behavior is totally bizarre. It’s like an underpowered chess engine that makes flagrant blunders: capitalizing random words in the middle of a sentence (rock -> Rock), the context sensitivity of an actual rock, forcin…

The one the drives me mad the most is when I type a word which it incorrectly autocorrects to a proper noun (which gets capitalised), I then use backspace to delete that word and type the - completely different - correct one, but it insists on upper-casing the first letter to match the original casing of the incorrect autocorrect. It really should keep track of the fact that it introduces the case-change and invalida…

[deleted]

Re: Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

#58

Post by strogonoff »

nfg wrote: post #46
jointpdf wrote: post #34

Setting aside all the other work Apple is doing in this area, can someone explain why iMessage autocorrect is unacceptably bad (to put it diplomatically) in the era of weapons-grade language models? Its behavior is totally bizarre. It’s like an underpowered chess engine that makes flagrant blunders: capitalizing random words in the middle of a sentence (rock -> Rock), the context sensitivity of an actual rock, forcin…

The one the drives me mad the most is when I type a word which it incorrectly autocorrects to a proper noun (which gets capitalised), I then use backspace to delete that word and type the - completely different - correct one, but it insists on upper-casing the first letter to match the original casing of the incorrect autocorrect. It really should keep track of the fact that it introduces the case-change and invalida…

I can never make iOS write “Hong Kong” when swipe-typing; tried setting up forced text replacement entry (kong->Kong) to zero effect. It is always “Hong kong”.

Re: Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

#59

Post by tedeh »

IshKebab wrote: post #56
jolux wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s chips are way better so whether they’re doing more locally or not they have the headroom to do a lot more. I would agree with that characterization of Google. They have a very small handful of successes and an enormous pile of failures that they’ve discarded. They give every impression of not really knowing what to do. I think Giannandrea was also referring specifically to the kinds of experiences Apple can p…

What AI failures have Google had? Google Home is much better than Siri or Alexa. The camera feature in Google Translate works really well. Their new auto subtitles on Android work really well. Searching photos for objects works really well. The only thing I can think of is that think they demoed that would call restaurants to book them for you, but that was clearly highly experimental, and it's not like Apple has don…

https://github.com/elsamuko/Shirt-without-Stripes

Re: Why Apple believes it’s an AI leader–and why it says critics have it all wrong

#60

Post by IndySun »

jointpdf wrote: post #34

Setting aside all the other work Apple is doing in this area, can someone explain why iMessage autocorrect is unacceptably bad (to put it diplomatically) in the era of weapons-grade language models? Its behavior is totally bizarre. It’s like an underpowered chess engine that makes flagrant blunders: capitalizing random words in the middle of a sentence (rock -> Rock), the context sensitivity of an actual rock, forcin…

The reason iOS type correction is so piss-poor is, to me at least, because it is not a 'typing' correction mechanism, it is pronunciation correction system. It bases it's auto replace on what the letters appear to be saying or sound like, and NOT, as it should, which would be simply and effectively based on typos on a qwerty keyboard. That is why. And it is like this because Apple want to steal your voice and 'preferred' you to talk, not type. Add to this no 'rude' words, even though you're an adult. Duck Apple for this alone!

I would leave iOS solely for this reason if it were not for the fact that Google are as bad.

The T9 input system is better.

Post reply on HN