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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#591

Post by tyho »

strangescript wrote: post #569
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…

The fundamental problem with this strategy is model size. I want all my apps to be privacy first with local models, but there is no way they can share models in any kind of coherent way. Especially when good apps are going to fine tune their models. Every app is going to be 3GB+

Foundation models will be the new .so files.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#592

Post by skohan »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #473
joelthelion wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Yes, it can be more cost effective for smaller businesses to do all their work on Mac Studios, versus having a dedicated Nvidia rig plus Apple or Linux hardware for your workstation. Honestly, you can train basic models just fine on M-Series Max MacBook Pros.

> a dedicated Nvidia rig

I am honestly shocked Nvidia has been allowed to maintain their moat with cuda. It seems like AMD would have a ton to gain just spending a couple million a year to implement all the relevant ML libraries with a non-cuda back-end.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#593

Post by throwitaway222 »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #499
joelthelion wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Not really (I work on AI/ML Infrastructure at a well known tech company and talk regularly w/ our peer companies). That said, inference on apple products is a different story. There's definitely interest in inference on the edge. So far though, nearly everyone is still opting for inference in the cloud for two reasons: 1. There's a lot of extra work involved in getting ML/AI models ready for mobile inference. And thi…

Inference on the edge is a lot like JS - just drop a crap ton of data to the front end, and let it render.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#594

Post by briandear »

robbomacrae wrote: post #552
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…

Having worked at Apple I can assure you it's not just spin. It's nigh on impossible to get permission to even compare your data with another service inside of Apple and even if you do get permission the user ids and everything are completely different so theres no way to match up users. Honestly its kind of ridiculous the lengths they go to and makes development an absolute PITA.

As an Apple alum, I can agree with everything you’ve said.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#595

Post by adamomada »

nox101 wrote: post #573
andsoitis wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 lu…

Their primary business is transitioning to selling services and extracting fees. It's their primary growth

So the new iPad & M4 was just some weekend project that they shrugged and decided to toss over to their physical retail store locations to see if anyone still bought physical goods eh

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#596

Post by littlestymaar »

MyFirstSass wrote: post #571
littlestymaar wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 8gb of ram. WTF? Why so little? That's insane to me, that's the amount of RAM you get with a mid-range android phone.

We've reached a point where their chips has become so amazing they have to introduce "fake scarcity" and "fake limits" to sell their pro lines, while dividing their customers into haves and havenots, while actively stalling the entire field for the masses.

Yes, but we're talking about the “pro” version here which makes even less sense!

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#597

Post by timmg »

asow92 wrote: post #332

Why are we running these high end CPUs on tablets without the ability to run pro apps like Xcode? Until I can run Xcode on an iPad (not Swift Playgrounds), it's a pass for me. Hear me out: I don't want to bring both an iPad and Macbook on trips, but I need Xcode. Because of this, I have to pick the Macbook every time. I want an iPad, but the iPad doesn't want me.

Just wait until you buy an Apple Vision Pro...

[It's got the same restrictions as an iPad, but costs more than a MacBookPro.]

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#598

Post by ptman »

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…

Apple privacy is marketing https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1039938

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#599

Post by xipix »

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…

How is local more private? Whether AI runs on my phone or in a data center I still have to trust third parties to respect my data. That leaves only latency and connectivity as possible reasons to wish for endpoint AI.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#600

Post by cbsmith »

serial_dev wrote: post #549
andsoitis wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 lu…

It doesn't need to stay true forever. The alternative is Google / Android devices and OpenAI wrapper apps, both of which usually offer a half baked UI, poor privacy practices, and a completely broken UX when the internet connection isn't perfect. Pair this with the completely subpar Android apps, Google dropping support for an app about once a month, and suddenly I'm okay with the lesser of two evils. I know they are…

Google has also been working on (and provides kits for) local machine learning on mobile devices... and they run on both iOS and Android. The Gemini App does send data in to Google for learning, but even that you can opt out of.

Apple's definitely pulling a "Heinz" move with privacy, and it is true that they're doing a better job of it overall, but Google's not completely horrible either.

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