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How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

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Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#11

Post by coldtea »

leereeves wrote: post #7
posterboy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX is much more than the kernel. Darwin is open source, even. What are you talking about?

How much of Apple's investment in OS X was in Darwin, and how much was in proprietary technology? Apple built a proprietary product using open source technology, and are now building proprietary products using open ML research. But it seems they're doing so for their own profit, not to benefit the open source and research communities.

>Apple built a proprietary product using open source technology

You say it as its somehow contradictory. Open Source licences allow (LGPL etc), and some even welcome (BSD, MIT, Apache) creating proprietary software based on open source technologies.

Besides, Apple also did extend open source technologies (as open source) a hell of a lot. Webkit past Apple is 100x bigger/fancier/better than the puny KHTML it started from. Tons of LLVM work, especially all the early stuff, has been sponsored by Apple. Swift was made Open Source just recently...

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#12

Post by throwanem »

I like how Apple can't win here.

If they publish, they aren't doing anything new and they haven't innovated since Steve died, and they should really just give up because there's obviously no point to anything they do and hasn't been since 1997.

If they don't publish, they're evil secretive bastards who don't contribute to the ML community and probably drown puppies or something because who knows what goes on behind closed doors?

I don't really have a dog in this fight, except inasmuch as I'm a generally satisfied iPhone owner. I just think it would be really neat if people would settle on one narrative or the other, instead of keeping on with both at once.

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#13

Post by mathattack »

IBM wrote: post #6
Smerity wrote: post #2

None of this really answers the overlying question that Jerry Kaplan and Oren Etzioni raised. The question raised by most in the field isn't whether Apple use AI/ML internally, the real question is why they avoid the research community so strongly. For me, the greatest thing about the ML/AI community is how open it is and how strong a sense of camaraderie there is between people across the entire field, regardless of…

What makes you think this is self-congratulation? This is a response to Marco Arment, Ben Thompson, and other pundits (largely spurred by the PR efforts of Google and to a lesser extent Facebook and Microsoft) who claim that Apple is "behind" in this field or that it somehow poses an existential threat to Apple. This is Apple saying "uh no". They'd be perfectly fine with not talking about it as they've done until now…

Some companies engage academia, many others do not. I find it very surprising how willing companies like Microsoft and Google are to let their best and brightest invest in publishing. I get the long term benefit, but in most companies secrecy is the default.

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#14

Post by k-mcgrady »

vonnik wrote: post #8

I have a big problem with articles like this. Apple's PR is notorious for cracking the whip, which means that the "inside story", if they give it to you, comes with a warning to the journalist to behave and be nice. Levy's piece is generous with flattery and cautious with criticism. He quotes Kaplan and Etzioni high and briefly in the piece, and spends the rest of it refuting them. Apple will give him another inside…

>> "Apple is so strict about privacy that it doesn't even let itself see your data, let alone anyone else. I support Apple's stance, but I worry that this will have repercussions on the size and accuracy of the models it is able to build."

I don't think this is something we should worry about. If you want better models use Google. If you want better privacy go with Apple. It's fantastic that we actually have a choice and don't all have to sign our privacy away or live in the dark ages.

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#15

Post by posterboy »

leereeves wrote: post #7
posterboy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX is much more than the kernel. Darwin is open source, even. What are you talking about?

How much of Apple's investment in OS X was in Darwin, and how much was in proprietary technology? Apple built a proprietary product using open source technology, and are now building proprietary products using open ML research. But it seems they're doing so for their own profit, not to benefit the open source and research communities.

That's what the top level comment said, you are only adding noise.

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#16

Post by k-mcgrady »

dstaten wrote: post #10

siri has gotten worse over time, or at least that's why friends and i have noticed

I've noticed it get drastically better. I never used to be able to use it at all. It was just a pointless exercise. Now it works for everything I use it for, which isn't a lot, but I don't get any issues.

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#18

Post by Analemma_ »

IBM wrote: post #6
Smerity wrote: post #2

None of this really answers the overlying question that Jerry Kaplan and Oren Etzioni raised. The question raised by most in the field isn't whether Apple use AI/ML internally, the real question is why they avoid the research community so strongly. For me, the greatest thing about the ML/AI community is how open it is and how strong a sense of camaraderie there is between people across the entire field, regardless of…

What makes you think this is self-congratulation? This is a response to Marco Arment, Ben Thompson, and other pundits (largely spurred by the PR efforts of Google and to a lesser extent Facebook and Microsoft) who claim that Apple is "behind" in this field or that it somehow poses an existential threat to Apple. This is Apple saying "uh no". They'd be perfectly fine with not talking about it as they've done until now…

[voluntarily removed]

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#19

Post by leereeves »

coldtea wrote: post #11
leereeves wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of Apple's investment in OS X was in Darwin, and how much was in proprietary technology? Apple built a proprietary product using open source technology, and are now building proprietary products using open ML research. But it seems they're doing so for their own profit, not to benefit the open source and research communities.

> Apple built a proprietary product using open source technology You say it as its somehow contradictory. Open Source licences allow (LGPL etc), and some even welcome (BSD, MIT, Apache) creating proprietary software based on open source technologies. Besides, Apple also did extend open source technologies (as open source) a hell of a lot. Webkit past Apple is 100x bigger/fancier/better than the puny KHTML it started…

Apple's core "product" is the user experience. Darwin is open source, Carbon and Cocoa are not.

I think that philosophy will continue as they use ML tools. They might share the ML equivalent of plumbing like Webkit/LLVM/Swift, but probably not improvements to the user experience like Siri's brain.

Re: How AI and Machine Learning Work at Apple

#20

Post by IBM »

Analemma_ wrote: post #18
IBM wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think this is self-congratulation? This is a response to Marco Arment, Ben Thompson, and other pundits (largely spurred by the PR efforts of Google and to a lesser extent Facebook and Microsoft) who claim that Apple is "behind" in this field or that it somehow poses an existential threat to Apple. This is Apple saying "uh no". They'd be perfectly fine with not talking about it as they've done until now…

[voluntarily removed]

His blog post was the direct result of Google I/O.
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