Live data from Hacker News

Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

macrumors.com

501–510 of 609 posts

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Apple's architecture data protection rather than privacy? As an European citizen in a post Snowden world I would be surprised if any of my data on Apple services was actually kept private from the US government, and Apple certainly wants to own a lot of data/metadata about you. Your conception doesn’t seem to match PCC at all. The whole point of it is that nobody can access the…

I don't trust a single US tech company to keep my data private from the US government. Maybe I need a tinfoil hat, but I don't feel like I'm unjustified in this based on the history going back to echelon. Not that this is a particular jive at the USA, my own government (Danish) actively pushes for mass surveillance and non-functional e2e encryption. There is still a difference though. Google will sell my data and use…

This part of their requirements for how PCC is architected directly addresses your concern:

“Verifiable transparency. Security researchers need to be able to verify, with a high degree of confidence, that our privacy and security guarantees for Private Cloud Compute match our public promises. We already have an earlier requirement for our guarantees to be enforceable. Hypothetically, then, if security researchers had sufficient access to the system, they would be able to verify the guarantees. But this last requirement, verifiable transparency, goes one step further and does away with the hypothetical: security researchers must be able to verify the security and privacy guarantees of Private Cloud Compute, and they must be able to verify that the software that’s running in the PCC production environment is the same as the software they inspected when verifying the guarantees.”

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#502
post #443
post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen the livestream, but I just heard that they intend to have their AI automatically change your passwords on websites if it considers them insecure, which sounds to me like the worst idea for AI so far, and that bar is high.

The better use case would be to make AI cancel that damn subscription that lets you jump through 20 dark pattern questions and then tells you to call customer support.

I would definitely like an AI that helps me avoid dark patterns and enshitification. Is there a browser that automatically solves annoying captchas for you?

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust a single US tech company to keep my data private from the US government. Maybe I need a tinfoil hat, but I don't feel like I'm unjustified in this based on the history going back to echelon. Not that this is a particular jive at the USA, my own government (Danish) actively pushes for mass surveillance and non-functional e2e encryption. There is still a difference though. Google will sell my data and use…

This part of their requirements for how PCC is architected directly addresses your concern: “Verifiable transparency. Security researchers need to be able to verify, with a high degree of confidence, that our privacy and security guarantees for Private Cloud Compute match our public promises. We already have an earlier requirement for our guarantees to be enforceable. Hypothetically, then, if security researchers had…

What does verify mean?

Can they verify the private cloud is completely immune to nationstate actors, has no zero-day vulnerabilities, is completely bulletproof in a court of law and can never be compelled to secretly share info with government(s), etc?

I think the users fear here is real. "We did good due diligence at the consumer level" and "we're completely immune to nationstate hackers and clandestine legal cases" are very different things.

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#504
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still doesn't explain why my data can only be sent to Apple and not to another vendor of my choice.

Oh by the way, who decides if the data stays on device or gets sent to Apple? I bet it's Apple and not the user.

[flagged]

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#505
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's PCC is the best option for this kind of offload that exists. However the PCC root keys are still signed by Apple which requires you to trust Apple and the laws in the jurisdiction Apple operates in . Edit: for this update they seems to be running Gemini on Nvidia GPUs in Google's cloud[0]. How key management works for this part is unknown, but the standard setup for this is that Nvidia and Google would have k…

Don't you think there is always going to be an escape hatch for peoples private data? Like if you ask it how to make an explosive the message won't stay private on Google's servers? Seems like there could be all kinds of things like that.

The design on the system is specifically done to make that impossible because you control the encryption keys and they can't see your data.

It nearly works except for the annoying hardware signing keys.

With OHTTP it might still be ok because it is impossible to identify which server has your content. OHTTP probably still applies to the Apple->[Google+Nvidia] version but they haven't specifically said that.

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#506

I would love to learn more about what's actually powering Apple Intelligence now. Are they using flagship Gemini models behind their own prompts? Fine-tuning? Pre-training their own models based on Gemini? Is there a meaningful distinction between the Gemini-powered models and Apple Foundation Models? Does that distinction vary for on-device vs hosted models? Are some models running on Apple's Private Cloud Compute a…

[flagged]

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#507
post #21

Very Apple-ish approach to AI catch up: wrap an external tool in a privacy architecture, embed into the OS and productize the orchestration layer. It will be interesting to see if the Private Cloud Compute + on-device routing can make third-party model capabilities feel like a first-party system without leaking user context to the model provider. If Apple handles the Google-Apple boundary right, this will be an elega…

> wrap an external tool in a privacy architecture Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Apple's architecture data protection rather than privacy? As an European citizen in a post Snowden world I would be surprised if any of my data on Apple services was actually kept private from the US government, and Apple certainly wants to own a lot of data/metadata about you. Gotta have Siri listening for carplay and so on. I wou…

From an EU perspective, Microsoft is doing data protection, Apple is doing data privacy.

Microsoft's approach to data is basically "we promise nobody else but you and your government can access it, we can but we pinky swear we won't." This promise is mostly enforced at the legal layer and through legal consequences, not technical safeguards. If they think they can get away with it (or are forced to get away with it by the US government), there's nothing stopping them from using your data in whatever way they want.

When they can, Apple designs their systems so that they physically don't even have the capability to use your data, even if it's processed on their own servers. They're not privacy maximalists like Signal is, they care more about user experience, but they do aim for the highest level of privacy you can get while still having a good experience, and when they do need to make sacrifices, they typically let you opt into the privacy features if you really want to.

I'm far more inclined to believe that Microsoft is secretly (or not so secretly) collaborating with the US government than that Apple is.

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#508
post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite the typical outsider's simplistic view. Privacy is one of their core brand values. If they don't follow through on those, their brand erodes. And what history?

You can look up the history of this company's claims versus reality on their promises re. privacy yourself, there's enough to be found between Siri listening when it shouldn't, user data being accessible to the company in contrast to promises of privacy, the company collecting user data which is used for targeted advertising, several examples of push notification data being handed over to law enforcement agencies in…

Oh, brb, looking up the history

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Apple's architecture data protection rather than privacy? As an European citizen in a post Snowden world I would be surprised if any of my data on Apple services was actually kept private from the US government, and Apple certainly wants to own a lot of data/metadata about you. Your conception doesn’t seem to match PCC at all. The whole point of it is that nobody can access the…

I don't trust a single US tech company to keep my data private from the US government. Maybe I need a tinfoil hat, but I don't feel like I'm unjustified in this based on the history going back to echelon. Not that this is a particular jive at the USA, my own government (Danish) actively pushes for mass surveillance and non-functional e2e encryption. There is still a difference though. Google will sell my data and use…

It’s a fair concern, but the only way to reconcile a belief that Apple is sharing data from PCC with anyone (including themselves) is to assert the whole PCC thing is a massive fraud.

Which it could be, but given both breadth of claim and Apple’s strong incentives not to be caught lying about something so massive, I’d want something more than vibes to take the idea seriously.

Re: Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

#510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This part of their requirements for how PCC is architected directly addresses your concern: “Verifiable transparency. Security researchers need to be able to verify, with a high degree of confidence, that our privacy and security guarantees for Private Cloud Compute match our public promises. We already have an earlier requirement for our guarantees to be enforceable. Hypothetically, then, if security researchers had…

What does verify mean? Can they verify the private cloud is completely immune to nationstate actors, has no zero-day vulnerabilities, is completely bulletproof in a court of law and can never be compelled to secretly share info with government(s), etc? I think the users fear here is real. "We did good due diligence at the consumer level" and "we're completely immune to nationstate hackers and clandestine legal cases"…

You should read the paper.

Like any good security paper, it doesn’t assert immunity to particular parties. Instead, covers things like how PCC attests that the running software image is identical to the publicly-available, forensically-studied one.

Fear is real for sure, but don’t let fear be an excuse to lose rigor in thinking.

Post reply on HN