Apple is bringing AI to iOS, and Ny Breaking is not allowed to talk about it
Although the Buy a Mac Ad While the mid-to-late 2000s are probably just a memory for most of us, Apple’s latest keynote further impressed upon us business people that what a PC can do, a Mac can do even better — and can even make it more fun and worthwhile.
Enter Apple Intelligencea content- and context-aware AI tool built into iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia. It is scheduled to launch in October 2024 with support for US English, with other languages coming soon after.
It’s a lot like Microsoft 365 Copilot, the company’s AI platform we want to use at work, but aimed at consumers.
Generative AI, still the buzzword in tech, is coming to Apple users in the form of “Writing Tools,” with the company demonstrating a demo of how to write emails. The (slightly tenuous) B2B connection we’re aiming for here is that Apple demonstrated how a recent college grad used it to send an email to a recruiter. The email is just four sentences long, which makes the whole thing feel a little bleak, but hey, it’s a thing now.
It’s not a new concept that AI can replace the expression of any identity, but consider what makes Apple Intelligence different: that “many of the models that power Apple Intelligence run entirely on the device,” meaning your expensive designer computer is now bogged down by things that prevent you from truly devoting yourself to the things we invented computers to help us do in the first place.
Apple’s Special Cloud Computing for Intelligence
There’s also the fact that the company noted that its “Private Cloud Compute provides the ability to flexibly scale compute capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models running on dedicated Apple silicon servers,” which should mean this is primarily an Apple operation, with no nVidia chip or server involvement.
This is actually commendable; by running its own server infrastructure, Apple seems to be trying to achieve something, even if it’s not necessarily innovative. However, ChatGPT is baked into the brand new Siri and those ‘Writing Tools’, so you can’t have it all.
And yes, while we’re still mourning Windows Phone, iOS is in on the action. All that boring, stuffy conference room stuff about recording and summarizing Microsoft Teams calls has now trickled down to consumers; this now works on phone calls, with participants being notified during the call. No word on whether this works across all platforms or just between iOS devices. Natural language prompts can now be used to create photo galleries from descriptions, while automated cleanup features exist.
AI belongs more in the B2C sector than in the B2B sector
For me, AI’s place has always been to replace dullness. B2B writers and audiences find it easy to apply this to the world of work, since computers, ironically, have complicated our working lives far more than they’ve simplified them.
There’s still something to be said for handing AI to those who have access to technology but are often far too overwhelmed to use it properly. They’re bombarded with information like notifications, they’re bad at organizing photos and documents, and they’re bad at making home movies and photo albums. As probably the biggest household name on the planet, Apple is probably on the cusp of really sending AI into the stratosphere. In and of itself, this is a good thing. Ny Breaking is annoyed that we shouldn’t do that Real writing about what Apple is planning, but it could make people more skilled in technology, making it easier for them to get jobs in a highly digitalized world that is primarily a B2B affair.
It doesn’t necessarily make people more technical-literatewhich is a huge concern for the sustainability of technology and AI infrastructure going forward, though I’m not really sure how to get people to understand that Siri isn’t a living, breathing superbeing, how dismal AI is for the environment, or that a lack of respect for copyright of training dataset material is a living nightmare for anyone trying to monetize their work. It’s bad™ that there’s ignorance about these things, and Apple bringing AI to many more billions of people can only perpetuate it.
But if AI is going to exist, I’d rather consumers have it first. The human element in all the work that makes the work go around can be invaluable; the idea that AI can truly take over deliberate written expression seems laughable, and the idea that it can replace infrastructure where an element of human compassion and analysis is actually useful seems absolutely terrifying, and then some. But if you want to find every picture of your cat and throw them into a photo slideshow with just one sentence? Yeah, why not.