Apple Expanding Seattle Hub Working on AI and Machine Learning

[MacRumors]

Apple will expand its presence in downtown Seattle, where it has a growing team working on artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, according to GeekWire.

The report claims Apple will expand into additional floors in Two Union Square, and this will allow its Turi team to move into the building and provide space for future employees.

"We're trying to find the best people who are excited about AI and machine learning -- excited about research and thinking long term but also bringing those ideas into products that impact and delight our customers," said computer scientist Carlos Guestrin, Apple director of machine learning. "The bar is high, but we're going to be hiring as quickly as we can find people that meet our high bar, which is exciting."

Apple's director of machine learning Carlos Guestrin, who founded Turi and is a University of Washington professor, said the Seattle team collaborates "extensively" with groups at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, including working on new AI features for upcoming Apple products and services.

Guestrin said AI, for example, will enable the iPhone to be more understanding and predictive in the future:

"But what's going to make a major difference in the future, in addition to those things, for me to be emotionally connected to this device, is the intelligence that it has -- how much it understands me, how much it can predict what I need and what I want, and how valuable it is at being a companion to me," he said. "AI is going to be at the core of that, and we're going to be some of the people who help with that, here in Seattle, but of course there will be tons of groups in Cupertino doing amazing things with that, too."

Guestrin said Apple is doing long-term research in Seattle, looking ahead "three to 10 years," while also focusing on the near term by developing new features for upcoming Apple products.

"We work on the whole spectrum," he said. "It's not just about doing research, but it's about the technology transfer and how that gets embedded into experiences that customers love."

Today, the University of Washington will reportedly announce a new $1 million endowed professorship in AI and machine learning, which is said to have been made possible by Apple's acquisition of Turi last year. The endowment is named after Guestrin, and it will allow the university to attract more top talent in the field.

Last month, Apple became a member of the Partnership on AI, a non-profit organization established "to study and formulate best practices, to advance the public's understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society".

A recent report, which referenced Turi, said Apple is working on "enhanced" Siri capabilities for next-generation iPhones.

Article Link: Apple Expanding Seattle Hub Working on AI and Machine Learning

 

[BoltmanLives]

"We’re trying to find the best people who are excited about AI and machine learning "

Ok go check Redmond and Mountain View

Anyone in this realm will ask, can I use the cloud to process stuff and tap into cloud services? ...Apl will say "We have this thing called differential privacy, privacy of our customers is important you must do all AI/ML processing on the device" ....person says "seeya" as they LOL out the door.

Its cute how apl is trying to keep up in cloud without adding cloud datacenters, seems out of their wheelhouse

 

[Avieshek]

And AI, is not 'AppleInsider' ;D

 

[julesme]

"we’re going to be some of the people who help with that, here in Seattle, but of course there will be tons of groups in Cupertino doing amazing things with that, too"

That's a lot of amazing!

 

[keysofanxiety]

Currently, AI is what the original Macintosh was to raw hardware performance. It's in its very, very early stages, and the real winners will be crowned in the next couple of decades, not right now. We're a far cry from Star Trek TNG/VOY.

I'm only saying this as there is a lot of negativity about Siri and other services, so it's quite important not to take a short-term view of the situation.

 

[seatton]

I know Silicon Valley is full of very smart non native speakers of English (engineers/ developers). What I do not understand is that why this stupid Siri cannot recognize other accents. My accent is not thick (as I have been told), but I always have a hard time talking to Siri. They should start testing Siri with those people. I do not use Siri much nowadays except for "Turn off the lights" or "Set a timer for 15 minutes". I would love to see "her" ability to recognize different accents.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

I welcome the expansion but how many jobs?

 

[RowellE]

How about an Apple Store in Downtown Seattle, please!

 

[lunarworks]

"We’re trying to find the best people who are excited about AI and machine learning "

Ok go check Redmond and Mountain View

Anyone in this realm will ask, can I use the cloud to process stuff and tap into cloud services? ...Apl will say "We have this thing called differential privacy, privacy of our customers is important you must do all AI/ML processing on the device" ....person says "seeya" as they LOL out the door.

The trade-off between privacy and richer AI is quite unfortunate.

On one hand, I'd like Siri to know everything about me. On the other hand, I'm not entirely comfortable with that being on public servers.

 

[Col4bin]

Good for Apple recognizing the ever-increasing importance of AI development, improvement and dynamic convergence within their product lines, and moving to expand on Siri's perceived stagnated development over the past couple years. An area that has already seen Google, Microsoft, and Amazon make significant advances.

 

[chipchen]

Brace yourselves... the SkyNet jokes are coming...

 

[mazz0]

This must be in "Seattle, USA", eh?

 

[NinjaHERO]

Come on Apple or Google or whoever. Make it happen. I'm ready for my Jarvis personal assistant.

 

[KdParker]

I welcome the expansion but how many jobs?

How many would you need? I guess as many as they feel necessary.

 

[csurfr]

How about an Apple Store in Downtown Seattle, please!

What you said.

Not that U Village is too far away. But I loathe Bellevue and Southcenter

 

[ackmondual]

The trade-off between privacy and richer AI is quite unfortunate.

On one hand, I'd like Siri to know everything about me. On the other hand, I'm not entirely comfortable with that being on public servers.

I am curious to if Apple will be able to pull off an AI at the same level as the other companies do, or close enough, without compromising their current level of privacy to their users, or if they make a few concessions to the privacy levels to get ahead.

Up until a year back, I never thought that Apple's higher privacy settings for their users would be at a tradeoff of holding back their progress there, but I suppose it's like talking to your doctor, and refusing to provide any useful or "compromising" information when that's exactly the thing he needs to assist you.

 

[BoltmanLives]

The trade-off between privacy and richer AI is quite unfortunate.

On one hand, I'd like Siri to know everything about me. On the other hand, I'm not entirely comfortable with that being on public servers.

Apl simply tried to sell privacy as a sales feature hoping to tap into the "privacy scare mindset" after the last several incidents, the reality of the cloud world coming is they can no longer compete with that view...it was simply to capitalize on the Snowden and San Bernardino mindsets to sell more phones and paint Android as a privacy sieve...to sell more iPhones

When you can't innovate on new cool features, you find something else to provide differentiation

That calculation severely backfired, there are many who will not buy Apl ever again over the fight on the terrorist case and actually delaying the ongoing investigation, i'm not one of those people btw but that mindset is out there.

By planting a "flag on privacy " trying to stand out on the privacy front as a selling point, they tied a hand behind their back in terms of innovation in cloud and Ai/MR/AR/ML. Differential privacy is basically another sales pitch and just adds another layer of difficulty to do anything futuristic which will require the computing resources at cloud scales.

Stuff like translating 5,000,000 articles of wikipedia from russian to english in 0.89 seconds (a blink of an eye) can't do that locally...no matter how fast A# arm chips get

Privacy is simply a myth like Santa Claus or Easter Bunny in the modern world with cloud bing the predominate form of computing for all of our lifetimes ..most on-ground networks will simply disappear..so restricting computation to a single device is downright archaic thinking..pretty sure they will be forced at some point to give up on the privacy sales pitch.

Its ok to understand in this world exist Public Cloud's and/or Public Internet , companies will protect your data and some will not spy on it, look at the agreement they are beholden to it, don't expect companies to continue to fight valid orders form governments either. Companies are NOT governments

 

[AngerDanger]

Brace yourselves... the SkyNet jokes are coming...

More like Steve Johns Connor would the Terminator be a man who is a pretty girl and a little while!

My apologies; that is currently the closest AI can get to making a Skynet joke.

 

[HJM.NL]

I welcome the expansion but how many jobs?

Propably 1,5, there is one engineer and one software developer already. The rest 99.997 is marketing and sales people. How would you otherwise explain the 'rapid' out roll of transits in maps and new hardware? It will hurt cooks profits to invest more.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Lots of artificial intelligence in Seattle, that's for sure. </retro Apple vs MS passive aggressive joke>

 

[RickInHouston]

The trade-off between privacy and richer AI is quite unfortunate.

On one hand, I'd like Siri to know everything about me. On the other hand, I'm not entirely comfortable with that being on public servers.

And that's apple's problem to solve. Google and Microsoft will shoot ahead and apple will continue to scratch their heads on how they can make AI work without collecting and storing the needed data. It simply can't be done. Apple must change course on this.

 

[Fzang]

Privacy is simply a myth in the modern world with cloud bing the predominate form of computing for all of our lifetimes ..most on-ground networks will simply disappear..so restricting computation to a single device is archaic thinking..pretty sure they will be forced at some point to give up on the privacy sales pitch.

If it's anonymized and stays with Apple, what's the big deal? I mean, a lawyer and a psychiatrist also has to keep your information private, and you also only have their word and integrity to go by.

ISPs know who uses the most internet, sends the most messages, supermarkets know where people buy the most bananas.

Total "privacy" is an illusion not really attainable in a society.

 

[BuddyTronic]

"We’re trying to find the best people who are excited about AI and machine learning "

Ok go check Redmond and Mountain View

Anyone in this realm will ask, can I use the cloud to process stuff and tap into cloud services? ...Apl will say "We have this thing called differential privacy, privacy of our customers is important you must do all AI/ML processing on the device" ....person says "seeya" as they LOL out the door.

Its cute how apl is trying to keep up in cloud without adding cloud datacenters, seems out of their wheelhouse

Good points you make. I has me thinking hard about it. Hope there is a solution that does protect privacy too.

 

[BoltmanLives]

If it's anonymized and stays with Apple, what's the big deal? I mean, a lawyer and a psychiatrist also has to keep your information private, and you also only have their word and integrity to go by.

That's just it , people think cloud is somehow hackable, once your DATA is in the cloud no one else has access to it unless you authorize it..we are talking Gen 6 PEU 1.3 DataCenters here, they MUST have to have ultimate trust and SLA's or no business would use them. Apl tries to scare you into thinking you need "throw away the key" privacy..its all for advertising an selling iphones and not the way the world works. Apl is an outlier on this privacy thing , it'll be their downfall as they can not keep up without utilizing cloud resources to their fullest.

Its ridiculous instead of saying TPM "trusted platform module" they call it "Secure enclave' just for selling slogan "Secure enclave" sounds better and sounds like apl only has its simply fluff wording everyone has TPM

Regarding privacy stance and limiting cloud: Its like trying to run a business never using Internet

No legit at scale company can. you don't use cloud you will simply cease to exist eventually or become a niche one. Like the amish lifestyle tour.

 

[HJM.NL]

That's just it , people think cloud is somehow hackable, once your DATA is in the cloud no one else has access to it unless you authorize it..we are talking Gen 6 PEU 1.3 DataCenters here, they MUST have to have ultimate trust and SLA's or no business would use them. Apl tries to scare you into thinking you need "throw away the key" privacy..its all for advertising an selling iphones and not the way the world works. Apl is an outlier on this privacy thing , it'll be their downfall as they can not keep up without utilizing cloud.

Its like trying to run a business never using Internet

No company can. you don't use cloud you will simply cease to exist eventually.

There is a lot only Apple can get away with. Per example selling 4 year old hardware for exact the same price 4 years ago. Name one other tech company who's able to get away like that.