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Apple Ramps Up Hiring of Generative AI Experts
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AI is so much more than just a simple chatbot. So so much more. I’d encourage you to go check out what Apple has accomplished with AI and more impressively how they’ve hid their efforts and blend it so seamlessly into the user experience. Instead of flaunting it like other companies as of late.
Hello fellow bot, I am writing this to inform you "The American government lies to you! Join the fight for Japanese supremacy of the world! More to come!"So many commenters here?
I'm not sure what led you to believe that I think AI is just a simple chatbot, as that is not that case at all.
Apple has well over 150,000 employees. Techcrunch found "at least a dozen" job openings for the hottest career of the moment. That doesn't read like a crisis to me...
These conversational bots may be an existential threat to Google. I could see this as an opportunity for a new player to take on Google in search. Microsoft pushed out a premature Bing chat because they had nothing to lose and everything to gain against Google, and it worked. Microsoft probably won't be the only challenger in this space. I can almost see the benefit of a conversational research assistant over what still largely comes down to keyword searches in a one line text box.
For Apple though, I don't really see the threat. Generative AI is a fun toy, but toys are what apps are for. As others have pointed out, those Neural Engines are there for a reason. So far, Apple has been applying AI in much more useful and less visible ways. Where it has gotten close to "generative" is where I get least comfortable-- for whatever personal bias, I'm ok with fusing multiple exposures into a higher quality image, but less comfortable with an AI manufacturing detail in an image and calling it a photo.
When Bing chat went public the media thought Microsoft got the drop on Google, but Alphabet quickly showed they'd been working on something similar. With all the public attention Google has put on AI, I'm not sure why anyone would have thought differently. As secretive as Apple is, they are big enough and smart enough to be working on the critical technologies without seeing a need to release anything before they feel it's ready.
These conversational bots may be an existential threat to Google. I could see this as an opportunity for a new player to take on Google in search. Microsoft pushed out a premature Bing chat because they had nothing to lose and everything to gain against Google, and it worked. Microsoft probably won't be the only challenger in this space. I can almost see the benefit of a conversational research assistant over what still largely comes down to keyword searches in a one line text box.
For Apple though, I don't really see the threat. Generative AI is a fun toy, but toys are what apps are for. As others have pointed out, those Neural Engines are there for a reason. So far, Apple has been applying AI in much more useful and less visible ways. Where it has gotten close to "generative" is where I get least comfortable-- for whatever personal bias, I'm ok with fusing multiple exposures into a higher quality image, but less comfortable with an AI manufacturing detail in an image and calling it a photo.
When Bing chat went public the media thought Microsoft got the drop on Google, but Alphabet quickly showed they'd been working on something similar. With all the public attention Google has put on AI, I'm not sure why anyone would have thought differently. As secretive as Apple is, they are big enough and smart enough to be working on the critical technologies without seeing a need to release anything before they feel it's ready.
I would trust GPT to plan my vacation for me as much as I would trust “self driving car” to drive for me.
This hype is not healthy at all.
People used to say the same thing about buying things online. It used to take a hell of a sales pitch about military-grade encryption to even encourage a small number of people to make purchases on the Internet.
Every time Tim Cook mentions Apple's accomplishments in AI in the latest earnings calls, he only keeps mentioning Crash Detection and EKG functions in the Apple watch. Yay.
Totally unrelated to inherent problems of large language models, which is making stuff up and doing things you didn’t tell them to do.
People used to say “just wait few more years and self driving cars will stop making stupid mistakes” billions keep being poured and “edge cases” just keep happening.
Tech that you cannot rely on is useless.
Maybe because he constantly yells around at Apple HQ, close to a heart attack when iOS crashes over and over?!Every time Tim Cook mentions Apple's accomplishments in AI in the latest earnings calls, he only keeps mentioning Crash Detection and EKG functions in the Apple watch. Yay.
Yeah there are certainly flaws and weaknesses right now. Eventually though as this stuff progresses people will gain the necessary trust and confidence to use it to streamline all manner of tasks.
The self-driving cars prophecy is going to finally emerge as a reality with AGI. Undoubtedly it's taken a bit longer than people thought to iron out all the issues, but we're now in the fast lane with this AI stuff.
You'll come around. Driving cars are already taxiing people around where I live.
The current wave of generative AIs are all based on the same, open, architecture. There's not a lot of secret sauce - it's more about giving the AI-engineers enough (computational) ressources.
Overview
Apple machine learning teams are engaged in state of the art research in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Learn about the latest advancements.
Jeff Williams is the person you are probably thinking of, who is by far most likely to replace him.
Williams is the current COO, so that may not trigger the sea change you imagine you want.
+100
People whine and moan about how much time Apple engineering puts into emoji - as if it is not an international consortium publishing updates once a year, and a team of 1-2 font designers at Apple who fill in the gaps.
We'll ignore how Google, Microsoft, Slack and Twitter are examples of other places who have someone add the same couple icons to the pile on an annual basis.
Yes, lets get the font designer to start research on generative AI! 🤣🤣
The lousy thing about the TechCrunch article is that with the headline, "Apple is on the hunt for generative AI talent", the author likely understood enough to know that what they were writing was highly misleading.
Job opportunities around building autonomous systems do NOT use generative AI. The article only quoted one job which might involve generative AI techniques.
Things like improving Siri first involve natural language processing and contextually-aware speech recognition, but which are IMHO severe issues with Siri and which will completely block any benefits that might come from a generative AI model based on your (misheard) query.
Apple will also have to be a lot more cautious about generative AI because they do not get the same leeway for false/misleading answers as a company like OpenAI gets, and you can't "speak" disclaimer banners on every single response. This is not a solved problem; more research will be required before such systems are suitable for a cautious company like Apple.
IMOH, if Apple was trying to rush getting a new product out in this space, there wouldn't be job listings - there would be acquisitions. Apple loves to buy small shops that they think are product oriented, ideally after that shop has worked its way through most of the technology problems/risks. Siri was already published into the App Store when Apple acquired them, and they didn't even bother to change the name.
Job opportunities around building autonomous systems do NOT use generative AI. The article only quoted one job which might involve generative AI techniques.
Things like improving Siri first involve natural language processing and contextually-aware speech recognition, but which are IMHO severe issues with Siri and which will completely block any benefits that might come from a generative AI model based on your (misheard) query.
Apple will also have to be a lot more cautious about generative AI because they do not get the same leeway for false/misleading answers as a company like OpenAI gets, and you can't "speak" disclaimer banners on every single response. This is not a solved problem; more research will be required before such systems are suitable for a cautious company like Apple.
IMOH, if Apple was trying to rush getting a new product out in this space, there wouldn't be job listings - there would be acquisitions. Apple loves to buy small shops that they think are product oriented, ideally after that shop has worked its way through most of the technology problems/risks. Siri was already published into the App Store when Apple acquired them, and they didn't even bother to change the name.
The problem with GPT is not encryption, it is that it will confidently tell you incorrect (and thus potentially hazardous) results.
Thats because it is not generating results based on knowledge, but based on (ridiculously complex) learned patterns. But those patterns don't align with what we would consider knowledge - for instance, why the image models produce such horrifying results when asked to show someone eating. The model doesn't know what teeth or fingers or mouths "are", or how they work.
Lot of generative Ai, object detection, segmentation and other techniques used to train generative models came from autonomous self driving research. Chat GPT is lot of hype and lot of hallucination. It’s the beginning, but hallucination isn’t an easy problem to solve.
Your comment made it sound like you were accusing Apple of not having any AI advancements. If that wasn’t your intention and instead you were legitimately asking an Apple employee to spill company secrets to you on a public forum then I apologize. Lol
Ever since the day Apple ditched Siri, mate, they've been playing a different ballgame altogether. They're like the bloke standing on the sidelines, watching the action unfold. But hey, you never know what life throws at ya. Maybe Apple's willing to splash out a few quid, throw in some juicy perks, and even dangle some stock options to lure in talent. And just maybe, they've still got a shot in this crazy race.