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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#531

Post by bee_rider »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #480
krunck wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that would be great. But without the ability for us to verify this who's to say they won't use the edge resources(your computer and electricity) to process data(your data) and then send the results to their data center? It would certainly save them a lot of money.

When you can do all inference at the edge, you can keep it disconnected from the network if you don't trust the data handling. I happen to think they wouldn't, simply because sending this data back to Apple in any form that they could digest it is not aligned with their current privacy-first strategies. But if they make a device that still works if it stays disconnected, the neat thing is that you can just...keep it…

To use a proprietary system and not trust the vendor, you have to never connect it. That’s possible of course, but it seems pretty limiting, right?

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#532

Post by dylan604 »

joelthelion wrote: post #461
rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

>n case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) I'm curious: is anyone seriously using apple hardware to train Ai models at the moment? Obviously not the big players, but I imagine it might be a viable option for Ai engineers in smaller, less ambitious companies.

Does one need to train an AI model on specific hardware, or can a model be trained in one place and then used somewhere else? Seems like Apple could just run their fine tuned model called Siri on each device. Seems to me like asking for training on Apple devices is missing the strategy. Unless of course, it's just for purely scientific $reasons like "why install Doom on the toaster?" vs doing it for a purpose.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#533

Post by jajko »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #489
legitster wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending data up to the cloud for processing). I feel like people are being a bit naïve here. Apple's "Privacy First" strategy was a marketing spin developed in response to being dead-last in web-development/cloud computing/smart features. Apple has had no problem changing their standards by 180 degrees and being blatantly ant…

Of course! The difference is that, for the time being, my incentives are aligned with theirs in regards to preserving my privacy. The future is always fungible. Anyone can break whatever trust they've built very quickly. But, like the post you are replying to, I have no qualms about supporting companies that are currently doing things in my interest and don't have any clear strategic incentive to violate that trust.…

I can't agree with your comment. apple has all the incentives to monetize your data, that's the whole value of Google and Meta. And they are already heading into ad-business earning billions last I've checked. Hardware ain't selling as much as before, this isn't going to change for the better in foreseeable future.

The logic is exactly same as ie Meta claims - we will pseudoanonymize your data, so technically your specific privacy is just yours, see nothing changed. But you are in various target groups for ads, plus we know how 'good' those anon efforts are when money are at play and corporations are only there to earn as much money as possible. Rest is PR.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#534

Post by jablongo »

rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

So for hardware accelerated training with something like PyTorch, does anyone have a good comparison between Metal vs Cuda, both in terms of performance and capabilities?

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#535

Post by aurareturn »

mort96 wrote: post #281
simonbarker87 wrote: post #21

Seeing an M series chip launch first in an iPad must be result of some mad supply chain and manufacturing related hangovers from COVID. If the iPad had better software and could be considered a first class productivity machine then it would be less surprising but the one thing no one says about the iPads is “I wish this chip were faster”

To be honest, I wish my iPad's chip was slower! I can't do anything other than watch videos and use drawing programs on an iPad, why does it need a big expensive power hungry and environmentally impactful CPU when one 1/10 the speed would do? If I could actually do something with an iPad there would be a different discussion, but the operating system is so incredibly gimped that the most demanding task it's really su…

>To be honest, I wish my iPad's chip was slower! I can't do anything other than watch videos and use drawing programs on an iPad, why does it need a big expensive power hungry and environmentally impactful CPU when one 1/10 the speed would do?

A faster SoC can finish the task with better "work done/watt". Thus, it's more environmentally friendly. Unless you're referring to the resources dedicated to advancing computers such as the food engineers eat and the electricity chip fabs require.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#536

Post by dylan604 »

lunfard000 wrote: post #525
rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

Prob beacuse they are like super-behind in the cloud space, it is not like they wouldn't like to sell the service. They ignored photos privacy quite a few times in the icloud.

is it surprising since they effectively given the finger to data center hardware designs?

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#538

Post by s1k3s »

rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

For everyone else who doesn't understand what this means, he's saying Apple wants you to be able to run models on their devices, just like you've been doing on nvidia cards for a while.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#539

Post by andsoitis »

rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

> In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending data up to the cloud for processing).

Their primary business goal is to sell hardware. Yes, they’ve diversified into services and being a shopping mall for all, but it is about selling luxury hardware.

The promise of privacy is one way in which they position themselves, but I would not bet the bank on that being true forever.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#540

Post by dylan604 »

cletus wrote: post #227
izacus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple usually massively exaggerates their tech spec comparison - is it REALLY half the power use of all times (so we'll get double the battery life) or is it half the power use in some scenarios (so we'll get like... 15% more battery life total) ?

IME Apple has always been the most honest when it makes performance claims. LIke when they said an Macbook Air would last 10+ hours and third-party reviewers would get 8-9+ hours. All the while, Dell or HP would claim 19 hours and you'd be lucky to get 2 eg [1]. As for CPU power use, of course that doesn't translate into doubling battery life because there are other components. And yes, it seems the OLED display uses…

Yeah, the assumption seems to be that using less battery by one component means that the power will just magically go unused. As with everything else in life, as soon as something stops using a resource something else fills the vacuum to take advantage of the resource.
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