Apple Hiring for 'Answers' Team Working on 'ChatGPT-Like Search'

[thebart]

The article points to this listing

AIML - Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Answers, Knowledge & Information (AKI) - Jobs - Careers at Apple

Apply for a AIML - Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Answers, Knowledge & Information (AKI) job at Apple. Read about the role and find out if it’s right for you.

jobs.apple.com

Base pay of 180-318K

This doesn't look serious at all. Nothing worth this much discussion

 

[Dr McKay]

How is Apple to monetise it? And suppose Apple does come to dominate search on their own devices, wouldn't that cost them the billions they get paid from Google each year? So succeeding in search could cost Apple money.

Probably like the others are, offer a basic free service but lock the decent features behind a paywall for a “premium AI” service. Give new Apple device users 1 year free premium and hope they get hooked.

"switched to Grok"? who in their right mind would use this right wing troll farm?

There are a surprising number of Musk fanboys on here. The easiest way to summon them is to write a comment saying you wish that Tesla supported CarPlay.

 

[frifra]

Cannot wait for „Here is what I found on the web for you“ in 2027.

 

[thebart]

A LLM based on my private documents sounds like a stupid idea that will make a stupid LLM. It’s a bad neural net with no neurals to net!

It wouldn't be "based on your documents." That would be a ridiculously small corpus. It would have all your documents, email, photos, etc as *context* so it isn't just the Dr Know from the Spielberg movie AI that answers all questions about the world, but also Jarvis from Iron Man that knows about you, your life, your business

 

[sprintsucks]

They're just now hiring for this? What have they been doing... for the last several years? As a commentor above mentioned and I never really thought about it that way: Jobs had a Siri strategy because he knew the future of computing was AI+conversational. That was iPhone 4S IIRC. And they've absolutely screwed that opportunity since Siri has not improved much since that original release.

And then we have Spotlight. How old is that? 15 years? What another missed opportunity to ship AI builtin to that search feature.

IMHO, Apple is rotten from the head down. Tim Cook is not a technologist, and I doubt he barely even knows how to use a computer. How can you run a computer company if you don't fundamentally use or understand it? There's no more chief product people at Apple either. It's all just milquetoast meetings and personalities: No one is allowed to touch the guaranteed cash monster, which is iPhone. So they do small changes here and there, and everyone from the engineers to the SVPs are just collecting their paychecks and watching that AAPL grow to $3T valuation. This is the current state of affairs everywhere, including Google. Sadly, there's no competitors in the smartphone space besides Android as an alternate OS which is its own mess. So until something comes along at that scale and is able to dethrone the big 2, its going to remain this way I'm afraid.

 

[freezelighter]

People don't realize what will happen around 2030.

They still fight for their KPIs and have no life.

Fortunately, this all will be over soon.

 

[frownface]

It have a suggestion that is completely impractical and only semi-facetious that could solve two problems for Apple.

Apple should buy OpenAI

This would
1. Give them world-leading teams to solve their AI issues
2. Get Jony Ive back so Apple can return to design-centric products.

Now, I'm sure there would be some fallout and executive rank shake ups. It might require getting rid of the current Apple executive team and replacing them with people who are driven to change the world, not just the size of their portfolios.

Unfortunately microsoft already owns 49% of the for-profit arm, and i don't forsee them selling any of their stake anytime soon. The other 51% isn't for sale as far as i'm aware.

 

[frownface]

Apple's gotten too big and slow. They can't react to the market in real time anymore. Microsoft is/was the same way. Apple's going to get Blackberry'd if they don't get their act together. And I don't think any of us want to see that.

Ballmer's microsoft maybe.

But nadella's microsoft is a lot more progressive.

Microsoft own 49% of Open-AI's for profit arm, and started accumulating back in 2019.

Microsoft had the forsight to do this, years before generative AI was a buzzword.

Apple could've done the same thing but didnt, and it certainly wasn't because they didn't have the money back in 2019.

 

[PrivPku09]

I really hope they fall once on their face, as this whole Siri/AI stuff, lost promises, major delays, poor performances/bugs while unnecessary *** is delivered, shows too much arrogance

I can’t stand the name Siri anymore, it is connected with too many disappointments

 

[Octavius8]

Trying to play catch 10 years later… will have SOME at least 5 years later, which will still be extremely delayed and primitive.
Apple just lost the innovation or even competitive edge and Tim will be demoted within 2 years.

 

[unchecked]

They don’t have to do everything software wise. They just need to focus on making good hardware that people use to access said software. See Nvidia. That also means knowing when to let go of the walled garden approach.

 

[svish]

Will be interesting to see where this goes. Might take a year or two before it is ready. A separate app that can compete with the other AI's will be good.

 

[leonremi]

Basically everyone who prefers an accurate, unbiased and uncensored AI.

Ah yes, the MechaHilter bot....sure.

 

[Muzzakus]

It’s only mid 2025.

Slow clap.

 

[springsup]

Oh, so like Google’s knowledge graph?

Welcome to 2012, Apple. Keep skating to where that puck used to be; maybe one day you’ll catch a glimpse of where it is now.

 

[bluecoast]

OK. Maybe. Let's see. GenAI is advancing so fast, I think that they'll need to buy in a solution / team and integrate it fast.

At this point, it's really clear that Apple's strategy pre Chat GPT was just to ensure that they did incremental 'just enough' improvements in both hardware and software, with a once every 10 years radical rework of the iPhone (and their other platforms) once there was a significant technology evolution in key components (batteries, screens etc.).

And GenAI has completely upended that and Apple are struggling to turn the oil tanker around.

I still think that they have only a 50/50 chance of doing this. Not because they haven't got the cash or talent in their ranks, but because senior managers have a particular way of doing things which was all an evolution of the Steve Jobs way and as the saying goes, 'old habits die hard'.