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Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

bloomberg.com

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Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#51

Post by JumpCrisscross »

int_19h wrote: post #6
jonplackett wrote: post #4

I find this all quite baffling. I’m pretty sure I could knock up a decent Siri clone with got4o-mini, because I already did a bootleg Alexa to power our smart home stuff after Amazon removed the privacy controls. The only hard bit was the wake word. Siri is currently so terrible that even something like Mistral 8b could do a decent job. Whey don’t they just run something like that on their own servers instead?

They are competing against Gemini on Android, so it stands to reason that they need something on par with that. Per TFA they are still talking about running those models on Apple's own servers. The more interesting question is how they're going to handle the 180 on all the talk about privacy.

> They are competing against Gemini on Android, so it stands to reason that they need something on par with that

Why? What does Gemini actually do, that users actually use, that requires deep integration into the OS?

Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#52

Post by dzhiurgis »

Rebuff5007 wrote: post #16
atonse wrote: post #7

At this point, just about anything Apple can do will be way way way better than the absolute turd that is Siri. (It was only impressive 15 years ago). Apple's AI strategy has seriously hurt their reputation. I'd love to be a fly on the wall where they discussed a strategy that amounted to "forget using the most basic LLM to understand combinations of commands like, stop all the timers and just keep the one that has a…

I know this is the leading narrative, but I actually disagree. Apple has a wonderful set of products without any form of generative AI, and those products continues to exist. Yes there is opportunity to add some fancy natural-language based search / control, but that seems like relatively low hanging fruit compared to the moat they have and defend. Will adding gen ai natively to apple products have people non-trivial…

If OpenAI released a phone Apple’s sales will be down 50%.

At this point only a handful of apps that are irreplaceable are propping iOS up and that won’t last.

Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#53

Post by rkomorn »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #52
Rebuff5007 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is the leading narrative, but I actually disagree. Apple has a wonderful set of products without any form of generative AI, and those products continues to exist. Yes there is opportunity to add some fancy natural-language based search / control, but that seems like relatively low hanging fruit compared to the moat they have and defend. Will adding gen ai natively to apple products have people non-trivial…

If OpenAI released a phone Apple’s sales will be down 50%. At this point only a handful of apps that are irreplaceable are propping iOS up and that won’t last.

What data backs this take of yours?

What irreplaceable apps are propping up iOS? What's the data showing that 50% of iPhone users are basically just begging to get off the platform?

Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bitpush wrote: post #50
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> problem with Apple is that their corporate culture doesn't vibe well with a lot of new tech Apple has never been the company that does it first. They're the company that does it right. Arguably, their fuckup with LLMs was rushing a garbage product to market instead of waiting and watching and perfecting in the background. > Apple is being far too conservative with a far too fast a developing piece of technology Str…

People love to parrot this, yet if you think for a second this isnt true at all in all the many ways. 1. Siri - not the first assistant, absolute garbage. 2. Apple Maps (original) - utter garbage at launch, slightly better today in US. 3. Vision Pro - Not the first VR headset. Massive failure. If anything, Apple has been tremendously successful few times when they were not first (phones, tablets, silicon ..) but they…

Non sequitur. Nobody argued everything Apple has ever launched has been a success. I'm just pushing back on the notion that the "problem with Apple is that their corporate culture doesn't vibe well with a lot of new tech." That's not a problem, that's the key to their success (where it's been found).

Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#55

Post by haiku2077 »

jurgenaut23 wrote: post #26
atonse wrote: post #7

At this point, just about anything Apple can do will be way way way better than the absolute turd that is Siri. (It was only impressive 15 years ago). Apple's AI strategy has seriously hurt their reputation. I'd love to be a fly on the wall where they discussed a strategy that amounted to "forget using the most basic LLM to understand combinations of commands like, stop all the timers and just keep the one that has a…

It doesn’t matter. No one buys an iPhone for Siri and no one switches to Android for whatever they call this thing. I have owned an iPhone for more than 15 years, and I have used Siri a dozen times. They will implement something using GPT-4 or Claude and this whole mess will be forgotten.

I use Siri a lot for home automation, and am frustrated by how much better it could be.

"Turn off all the lights in the house" works, but "turn off all the lights" does not. What?!??

Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#56

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #51
int_19h wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are competing against Gemini on Android, so it stands to reason that they need something on par with that. Per TFA they are still talking about running those models on Apple's own servers. The more interesting question is how they're going to handle the 180 on all the talk about privacy.

> They are competing against Gemini on Android, so it stands to reason that they need something on par with that Why? What does Gemini actually do, that users actually use, that requires deep integration into the OS?

[deleted]

Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#57

Post by _lvbh »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #52
Rebuff5007 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is the leading narrative, but I actually disagree. Apple has a wonderful set of products without any form of generative AI, and those products continues to exist. Yes there is opportunity to add some fancy natural-language based search / control, but that seems like relatively low hanging fruit compared to the moat they have and defend. Will adding gen ai natively to apple products have people non-trivial…

If OpenAI released a phone Apple’s sales will be down 50%. At this point only a handful of apps that are irreplaceable are propping iOS up and that won’t last.

I highly doubt that OpenAI is capable of releasing a full phone that isn't just a reskin of a generic Android with "AI". IOS design sucks (imo) and its app selection is much less than Android but that's not what makes people buy iPhone. It's simple familiarity and marketing. I'll definitely be switching off my iPhone when it breaks but that'll probably take at least a decade. Phones are pretty much feature complete at this point - for a normal person there's almost no reason to upgrade.

Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#58

Post by barkerja »

drexlspivey wrote: post #49
halJordan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That rumor was a rumor about apple replacing its search engine. Perplexity has a home grown search engine. Regardless i dont accept the false constraint the Apple simply must buy a foundation model or whatever that means. Perplexity's "wrapper" does a better job than chatgpt or geminiin its domain.

Apple needs a team that knows how to train an LLM. Why would they need to buy perplexity to use their search engine?

To allow users to query for anything? The index isn't to train and build a model, it's to behave as a search engine for their users. It would (or could) effectively replace Google for Apple users.

Imagine an updated Spotlight that would allow the user to enter any query, obtaining information from the internet, enriched with their local context/data.

LLM Siri is an entirely different concern than Apple potentially acquiring Perplexity. I view them as two wildly different initiatives.

Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#59

Post by nickthegreek »

drexlspivey wrote: post #3

There are rumors around that Apple is trying to buy perplexity which makes no sense to me. Perplexity doesn’t have their own foundation model they just wrap existing models so what good are they? They should buy Mistral instead.

I really like perplexity. It’s now my default search. there are ways to get perplexity pro for extremely cheap. I recommend those with a passing interest try it out.

Re: Apple weighs using Anthropic or OpenAI to power Siri

#60

Post by rcarmo »

atonse wrote: post #41
Rebuff5007 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is the leading narrative, but I actually disagree. Apple has a wonderful set of products without any form of generative AI, and those products continues to exist. Yes there is opportunity to add some fancy natural-language based search / control, but that seems like relatively low hanging fruit compared to the moat they have and defend. Will adding gen ai natively to apple products have people non-trivial…

It's not about being fancy. My examples are so utterly dull. Being able to say "turn on the lights in the living room and turn off the fans in the kids' rooms" – is not a crazy use case. Instead, I literally have to say: - Turn on Living Room light - wait - turn off bedroom fan - wait - turn off bedroom fan Yes, I could actually say "turn off all the fans" (I believe Siri understands that) but that's usually not what…

Actually, what you describe should be feasible with the new on-device foundation models (I haven’t installed the beta myself, but in my close friend group we’ve been suggesting prompts to the couple of brave people who do Switft development, and the foundation models seem able to do that).
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