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Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

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Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#451

Post by lapcat »

LegNeato wrote: post #418
lapcat wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They addressed this once with a huge “0 new features” iteration with Snow Leopard to catch up on the worst of it This is a myth, though a myth created by Apple itself and Bertrand Serlet's tongue-in-cheek keynote slide. Snow Leopard actually had a number of new features: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard#New_or_c... Moreover, Mac OS X 10.6.0 was much buggier than its immediately predecessor Mac OS…

As the person who personally ran 10.6 v1.1 at Apple (and 10.5.8), you are wrong(ish). The new version of the OS was always being developed in a branch/train, and fixes were backported to the current version as they were found. They weren't developed linearly / one after another. So yeah, if you are comparing the most stable polished/fixed/stagnant last major version with the brand new 1.0 major version branch, the ne…

> As the person who personally ran 10.6 v1.1

Do you mean Mac OS X 10.6.8 v1.1? Otherwise, I don't know what you mean by "v1.1".

In retrospect, I'm guessing that you meant N.1, e.g., 10.6.1. But 10.6.1 certainly didn't solve all of Snow Leopard's problems. Like I said before, the "stable" Snow Leopard everyone loves was the result of almost two years of minor updates.

> you are wrong(ish).

> So yeah, if you are comparing the most stable polished/fixed/stagnant last major version with the brand new 1.0 major version branch, the newer major is going to be buggier. That would be the case with every y.0 vs x.8.

In other words, as you admit, I'm 100% right. ;-)

Every new major OS update introduces new bugs, that didn't exist in the previous OS, some of them horrible, and Snow Leopard was no exception.

Remember this one? It's hard to find a worse bug than total user data loss: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/snow-leopard-bug-respon...

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#452

Post by zelon88 »

sitkack wrote: post #422
pm90 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Big Company Experience” is a fucking plague. Smaller companies hire from them thinking they will bring magic sauce but all they bring is toxicity and political baggage. Meanwhile the people who went against all odds to get the company to where it is are pushed out, because “they’re not the right fit for this scale”. Nobody who says this ever talks about growing people into those roles.

Big Company Experience means you can thrive Roman style bureaucratic power plays, not actually build things. It does take a different kind of person to bootstrap something out of a garage into a company, and then continue that fledgling company to the next phase, but instead of going BCE, they should be tapping back into the Founder Energy, not the BCE people.

I'm not a Big Company person or a Founder. From my perspective, it's the "continue to the next phase" that is the whole problem.

Not everything needs to be expanded to it's logical extreme. I've worked in a lot of places, and the ideal employer is probably one who is in the middle, and planning on staying there.

The concept of "grow until you've eaten everybody" is sickening, and tiring. Especially for your non-C-suite employees who don't give a fuck about the logo on their shirt. I'm talking of course about most people the second they are no longer within earshot of their boss.

That "momentum, oomph, pizzazz" is not normal all the time. In the words of Mark Meadows, "if everything is sacred; then nothing is sacred." Meaning if you don't prioritize what is truly important, and simply assume that everything is of equally critical importance, then chances are you will fail at many more things than if you focused on the one most important thing.

But companies don't think that way. They see missed anything as missed opportunity. That is rarely the case.

Here's an example; Imagine a machine shop that has 10 customers and 65% on-time delivery. The top 3 customers drive 75% of the businesses revenue. Now lets assume that they are in negotiations with a potential 11th customer who will be their new 5th largest customer.

The cut-throat capitalist would pull all their strings to get this customer. And then the rest of the customers will notice that their 65% on time delivery decreases to 55% as a result. Now the 3rd largest customer is quoting their parts elsewhere because they need a second supplier to cover how unreliable your deliveries are.

Do you believe that had the business not taken on the additional customer that they would have "missed a revenue opportunity"? Is that big picture stuff, small picture stuff, or just humans who live in a real world stuff?

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#453

Post by potatolicious »

moandcompany wrote: post #6

A few quick cliffs notes plus added info: John "JG" Giannandrea was hired over to Apple around 2018 to head Apple's new AI/ML division, which would include the Siri organization that predates Giannandrea's tenure at Apple. Giannandrea was previously the executive in charge of Google's Research division. Mike Rockwell was hired into Apple from Dolby Labs around 2015 to head a group called "TDG" that would be the R&D a…

> "appears to have found that that the AI/ML organization built at Apple struggled to manifest its work into successful product wins despite the massive financial investment"

I would contest this statement very vigorously. Siri has been a disappointment but nearly every single Apple product has a load-bearing reliance on an AI/ML feature.

I'm continually frustrated by the (relatively recent, since LLMs) tic where just because a ML model isn't conversing with you or otherwise making its presence impossible to ignore, that it isn't delivering a massive amount of value. It is frustrating from laypeople, it is extra frustrating from industry insiders.

Just a few examples off the top of my head:

- AirPods with ANC and spatial audio. Both headline features of these products that are 100% AI/ML.

- Watch with heart arrhythmia detection, automatic workout detection, fall detection, etc. All are headline features (some literally life-saving) and are 100% AI/ML.

- iPhones have high-profile features that are 100% AI/ML: automatic car crash detection. Others are more subtle but IMO substantial differentiators - such as automatic image enhancements out-of-camera.

Again, I know in the age of ChatGPT we seem to have twisted ideas of what ML is, but "AI/ML" is not synonymous with LLM.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#454

Post by pinkmuffinere »

hosh wrote: post #442

My Google Maps experience has gone downhill over the past two years. It has gotten bad enough that I started using Apple Maps. I was blown away by the difference, not just from how far they have come along since launch, but that how the navigation gives directions in a way that matters to me while I am driving. I don't know why Siri has had a bad user experience, but if there is one company that can do a better job a…

Counterpoint - Google maps has been fine for me, my only annoyance being that iPhone often defaults to Apple Maps and I have to manually switch over.

Nonetheless, your comment convinces me that I should try Apple Maps more seriously. Maybe I’m missing out.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#455

Post by taneq »

Every few months I get curious and say something like "Hey Siri, are you actually smart yet or are you just a script matching keywords?"

So far the response has always been "I'm soOrrY I doOnT kNoW HoooW ToDooo ThaAT". At which point I decide to wait a few more months.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#456

Post by ryandrake »

FredPret wrote: post #425
airstrike wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, what's the advantage here? People are going to unplug the mouse anyway when it doesn't need charging because it feels much more natural. _Forcing_ people to stop using the mouse to charge is a braindead decision

It might be wrong but it's not braindead. The idea was to prevent non-techy users from using it plugged-in all the time, which would look stupid. They wanted to accentuate the wireless nature and easy connectivity of the mouse. Essentially a marketing decision. I disagree with this take but it's worth remembering that it's marketing that turned computing from a niche activity to what it is now (which, by the way, is…

This is ugly. User behavior modification as a product goal. The reverse of how you should build products. You need to start with "The user wants to do X." rather than "I want the user to do X." Who is Apple to dictate the "correct" way for me to use a mouse?

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#457

Post by mikepurvis »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #454
hosh wrote: post #442

My Google Maps experience has gone downhill over the past two years. It has gotten bad enough that I started using Apple Maps. I was blown away by the difference, not just from how far they have come along since launch, but that how the navigation gives directions in a way that matters to me while I am driving. I don't know why Siri has had a bad user experience, but if there is one company that can do a better job a…

Counterpoint - Google maps has been fine for me, my only annoyance being that iPhone often defaults to Apple Maps and I have to manually switch over. Nonetheless, your comment convinces me that I should try Apple Maps more seriously. Maybe I’m missing out.

I've been an iPhone user for about ten years and have largely had the same relationship with Apple Maps for that time. Indeed, for the first time in a long time, I'm seriously considering switching back to Android later this year over a handful of annoying interop issues— chief among them the stuff recently surfaced by Pebble around APIs for wearables.

Not sure if that means I should try Apple Maps again at the 11th hour or not— maybe if it's finally gotten good it would be better to not know and just remain in blissful ignorance.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#458

Post by rchaud »

kthomson wrote: post #347
rchaud wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Isaacson biography has a section where Jobs speaks to the CEO of Corning (glass screen vendor, CEO was a materials engineer) with absolute Trumpian ignorance ("You don't know what you're doing!"). Corning wanted the business and thus had to coddle him like a baby to get him to see reality. It's tragic that so many business leaders in the US see this kind of bloviating as something to emulate. Reminds me of Altman…

Except this led to Corning repurposing a Kentucky plant and ramping manufacturing to meet the original iPhone launch. And Weeks (Corning CEO) has publicly praised Steve for helping him better assess risk as a leader.

Hence the 'coddled like a baby' portion of my comment. Zuckerberg, Cook and US tech leadership are doing the same to government currently, and chucking in $1 million each for good measure.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#459

Post by moandcompany »

potatolicious wrote: post #453
moandcompany wrote: post #6

A few quick cliffs notes plus added info: John "JG" Giannandrea was hired over to Apple around 2018 to head Apple's new AI/ML division, which would include the Siri organization that predates Giannandrea's tenure at Apple. Giannandrea was previously the executive in charge of Google's Research division. Mike Rockwell was hired into Apple from Dolby Labs around 2015 to head a group called "TDG" that would be the R&D a…

> "appears to have found that that the AI/ML organization built at Apple struggled to manifest its work into successful product wins despite the massive financial investment" I would contest this statement very vigorously. Siri has been a disappointment but nearly every single Apple product has a load-bearing reliance on an AI/ML feature. I'm continually frustrated by the (relatively recent, since LLMs) tic where jus…

1) This appears to be what Apple has concluded by the action they're taking and implied by the premise of the article, versus my personal opinion.

2) The examples given may have been produced by AI/ML-based technologies developed at Apple, but may not have been the work of Apple's AI/ML Organization. Many "groups" (divisions) within Apple have their own teams using AI/Machine Learning (e.g. AI/ML Org coexisting with AI/machine-learning work and teams in TDG/VPG, SPG (special projects group: the one previously working on a car), etc.

Re: Apple shuffles AI executive ranks in bid to turn around Siri

#460

Post by hnlmorg »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #454
hosh wrote: post #442

My Google Maps experience has gone downhill over the past two years. It has gotten bad enough that I started using Apple Maps. I was blown away by the difference, not just from how far they have come along since launch, but that how the navigation gives directions in a way that matters to me while I am driving. I don't know why Siri has had a bad user experience, but if there is one company that can do a better job a…

Counterpoint - Google maps has been fine for me, my only annoyance being that iPhone often defaults to Apple Maps and I have to manually switch over. Nonetheless, your comment convinces me that I should try Apple Maps more seriously. Maybe I’m missing out.

I was a defender of Google Maps last week. Then I had to drive some roads I was unfamiliar with at the weekend to get to a familiar funeral.

Google Maps gave me instructions to turn off a junction right at the turn off, resulting in me missing it. Worst still, it did this not once but twice. And the detour was via road works.

Google Maps added a considerable amount of time onto what was already a 3 hour journey.

Thankfully I had planned for problems so there wasn’t any negative outcomes aside time lost and a considerable amount of additional stress when I was already in an emotionally bad place.

On the journey home I used Apple Maps and the difference in the directions were night and day.

Apple Maps gave me ample warning before each junction. It described the junctions (eg “right turn 100 yards after the traffic lights”) so I knew exactly where I was going. Even told me what lane I needed to be in.

Google Maps did do this on occasions to be fair. But it was highly inconsistent. Hence why I got stung so badly when its instructions were last minute. Whereas Apple Maps was 100% reliable 100% of the time.

It will be a long time before I rely on Google Maps for satnav again.

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