So what is going on here? The reason is definitely not that Apple couldn't even train a small local LLM to power Siri, right?
Even with ChatGPT in play it’s not very good.
John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
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Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
#52Siri is probably among the products which had the most exposure to users (probably a billion+ users throughout iPhone's history) without capturing that opportunity to actually do anything meaningful with the huge user base it got for free. A decade and a half is insane timeline in tech industry, and huge majority of users use Siri the same way today as 15 years ago, setting a timer or an alarm clock. If they had 0 im…
Google Now. It's even completely gone and forgotten.
Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
#53From the outside looking in it really feels like Apple focused so much on privacy and now has no strategy of how to make that work with AI right now. People increasingly seem to forgo the idea of retaining the data for themselves because they find AI products so fascinating / useful that they're just not caring, at least for the moment. I think this might swing back in the favor of Apple at one point, but right now i…
Was the failure really driven by privacy policy? Long term a privacy play is the right move. But right now, Siri's capabilities even underwhelm vis-a-vis a model with no understanding of user context that is just interpreting commands.
Agreed. I often have to verbally battle with Siri to do the most basic interaction. Siri recognizes all my words but misinterprets my intent and does something I didn’t want.
Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
#54From the outside looking in it really feels like Apple focused so much on privacy and now has no strategy of how to make that work with AI right now. People increasingly seem to forgo the idea of retaining the data for themselves because they find AI products so fascinating / useful that they're just not caring, at least for the moment. I think this might swing back in the favor of Apple at one point, but right now i…
> From the outside looking in it really feels like Apple focused so much on privacy and now has no strategy of how to make that work with AI right now.
Are you referring to https://security.apple.com/com/blog/private-cloud-compute/?
The only way that AI will ever be able to replace each of us, is if it gathers our entire audio, text, etc history. PCC seemed like the only viable option for a pro-AI, yet pro-privacy person such as myself. I thought PCC was one of the most thoughtful things I had every seen a FAANG create. Seriously, whoever pushed that should get some kind of medal.
Are you saying that there is no technical solution for privacy and AI to coexist? Not only that, but that was the blocker?
I am genuinely interested if anyone can provide a technical answer.
Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
#55Siri is probably among the products which had the most exposure to users (probably a billion+ users throughout iPhone's history) without capturing that opportunity to actually do anything meaningful with the huge user base it got for free. A decade and a half is insane timeline in tech industry, and huge majority of users use Siri the same way today as 15 years ago, setting a timer or an alarm clock. If they had 0 im…
I'm amazed 'set a reminder for x when I leave this location' still doesn't get the 'when I leave this location'. It's clear user expectation created internally (by siri marketing) and externally (by ai tools) has far outpaced capability.
Apple seems weird about that and I'm not sure why, maybe accuracy or creepiness factor?
A feature I would love is to toggle "answer calls on speakerphone" based on location, so that I can answer a call with my phone on the desk while I'm at home and not have my ear blasted off taking a call when I'm walking down the street.
Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
#56This new guy is from Microsoft, who have enshittified every product they own with AI, ads, zero privacy data exfiltration, cloud everything, no security framework whatsoever, and the like.
I hope they don’t do anything remotely like that at Apple.
I am completely okay with the Apple approach to date (privacy and late mover cost advantage over progress and burning money/raising prices).
At this point, their investment to ship a better Siri is nearly zero if they take an open source model and run it on the device. Did John really mishandle it, or did he realise this and decide not to burn $BILS of cash and play the long game instead?
Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
#57Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
#58From the outside looking in it really feels like Apple focused so much on privacy and now has no strategy of how to make that work with AI right now. People increasingly seem to forgo the idea of retaining the data for themselves because they find AI products so fascinating / useful that they're just not caring, at least for the moment. I think this might swing back in the favor of Apple at one point, but right now i…
If total invasion of privacy is the only way to make AI useful, then maybe it isn't useful?
Don't invert the argument, something can be enormously useful while also having an equally big effect on one's privacy.
Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
#59Siri's awfulness really is a thing to behold. I haven't used an android phone in a while. For those users out there, does its voice assistant actually work?
Could you share a bit about your use case/experience? Siri does what I need it to do— send messages, create reminders and calendar entries, look up basic facts and cites the source, play music, add things to lists, etc. I’m curious if you’re trying to do things that I haven’t, or if you’re just having a very different experience with those same things? Or maybe just have higher expectations for it? Edit: why in gods…
"Siri, play The Dragonborn comes at 25% volume"
"Here is what I found about "The Dragonborn comes at 25" on the Internet" opens Safari
Re: John Giannandrea to retire from Apple
#60Imagine an alternate reality where companies can do things like create voice assistants without the absolute, unquestionable requirement to not only be profitable, but to have infinite compounding growth forever.
We'd have working voice assistants by now. We're held up by the incessant need to game "engagement" and seek rent.
In reality users just want a goddamn voice interface to their phone. Set a timer, remind me of x next time I'm at location y. Turn on the lights. Set home air conditioning to 72.
Simple, trivial bullshit that has absolutely no monetizable worth. Because it's not profitable enough it's not worth developing at all. I'm half convinced the only reason siri and google assistant even still exist is solely and exclusively because the "other guy" has it.
People argue innovation is impossible without capitalism. I argue innovation is impossible with capitalism. If your idea isn't profitable enough it's not worth any amount of investment regardless of how beneficial the idea might be.