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Apple Wasn't Interested in AI Partnership With Meta Due to Privacy Concerns

bobmans said:
Weird, their models are open source so Apple could struck a deal to run them on their own servers if they’re so concerned.
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Open Source does not mean "do whatever you want with it". Open source tech still comes with licensing agreements. Apple could not just embed any open-source tech into their operating systems without adhering to those licenses.

But it sounds like Apple was more concerned with the available data and how Meta was planning to use it internally. For example, if an Apple user did a query, Meta could capture that query without the user's knowledge. That's a valid privacy concern for Apple.
 
If you assume some company (or multiple) are profiting off everything you (or anyone else) do on your phone (or near it) then you won’t be far wrong. Privacy (even with Apple) has long gone.
 
Well duh. I guess it still bears saying for those who don't know the differences between Apple and Facebook's philosophy around products and privacy. Part of the reason Apple is so "expensive" is because the user isn't the product, the hardware and the software is.
 
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Many people are not interested because of privacy concerns. Customers and businesses… if both are suspicious of your technology, or more generally your culture and behavior, it isn’t looking great.
 
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sw1tcher said:
Meta should have offered Apple billions to use their AI in the same way Alphabet gives billions to Apple to make Google the default search engine. That's how you get Apple to look the other way when it comes to privacy.
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Exactly

They're hypocrites, although I give Google a pass because at least they hide the users personal details while meta will sell your nostril hair amount for a price.
 
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I don’t get this whole „no smart siri in the EU“ thing, if they are offering several different AIs in iOS, what’s the problem? It should be obvious that the ON device intelligence has to be- well ON DEVICE in order to be private and therefore has to be an Apple piece of software- privacy is a big goal in the EU too after all..
 
April, 2024:
"Hey guys, we are totally late with this cool gen AI thing which we saw from Copilot. Any Chance for a good deal?"
 
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Anthropic are probably the most important ones, Claude is a strong rival to ChatGPT for a lot of things - and may be a better conversational assistant for Siri.

I also think pi.ai is criminally under-rated. It's very good at real time results.
 
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ke-iron said:
Apple explained in the keynote how it keeps user data safe from chat GPT. So no it’s not a concern at all.
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How? With a great confirmation message? AppleIntelligence may send text, images, documents to OpenAI.

How do you want to anonymize private queries about a person, or the current phone screenshot or a personal document?
Why do you trust a 3rd party privacy policy?

Everytime Siri is overwhelmed with a private question/query, you will have to decline to not send data to OpenAI?
 
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chfilm said:
I don’t get this whole „no smart siri in the EU“ thing, if they are offering several different AIs in iOS, what’s the problem? It should be obvious that the ON device intelligence has to be- well ON DEVICE in order to be private and therefore has to be an Apple piece of software- privacy is a big goal in the EU too after all..
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The EU Commission would likely ask Apple to open up iOS even further so that others (like Meta) could create something similar to Apple Intelligence.

The EU Commission believes it's not Apple's right to protect the security and privacy of the ecosystem and not even looking out for user's security and privacy violation by others.
 
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“ … but Apple decided not to move on to a more formal discussion because "it doesn't see that company's privacy practices as stringent enough."

Had Apple chosen anything at all to do with any company that even had a hint of Zuck attached would have been enough to cause me to block the Apple implementation in my devices!

I trust Zuck’s companies even less than 45!
 
fl010 said:
How? With a great confirmation message? AppleIntelligence may send text, images, documents to OpenAI.

Why do the majority of users here do not understand it or even defend it?

How do you want to anonymize private queries about a person, or the current phone screenshot or a personal document?
Why do you trust a 3rd party privacy policy?

Everytime Siri is overwhelmed with a private question/query, you will have to decline to not send data to OpenAI?
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There isn’t anything identifying the user sent over to ChatGPT. Sure ChatGPT gets the query, but it doesn’t know who it’s coming from. If you have personal information in your query then that’s all on you.
 
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My jaw hit the floor when I read that article in the Wall Street Journal. I said to myself, what the heck is Apple thinking I can only imagine the backlash they’ve gotten since that article.
 
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macduke said:
Here come the regulators...

I'm no fan of Meta, actually really hate them, but going forward Apple needs to just open up these things so if you have the app installed with certain entitlements, you can set it as a default for if Siri is not returning any good results, like ChatGPT will be doing in the future. They could have a "Privacy Verified" list in the Settings panel for it, and then a list of everything else where you can swap in Meta if you install their AI app on your device. Otherwise I fear Apple will be targeted with Antitrust over this. I'm honestly surprised this hasn't happened yet for search engines since you can't use any other search engines aside from the 5 they provide you. Perhaps this is the precedent upon which Apple is drawing. They will have a list of the top 5 for you to pick from, and that's all you get. But the EU will continue to push!
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Agreed, but I will believe the EU is not singling out Apple in a crass protectionist way only when the EU passes regulations that require a common standard for all rechargeable batteries for home and garden power tools, so that batteries can be interchangeable among brands.
 
yadmonkey said:
Not nearly the same thing. It's super easy to not use Google on your Apple devices, but AI is being woven into Apple's OS, leaving the user no way out other than leaving the Apple ecosystem.
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Exactly this. A lot of people (rightfully so) are feeling 'relieved' that it's not META. And honestly, thank God it's not Meta.

BUT... I think what people are overlooking here, is this same data from AI on Apple devices is still being farmed out somewhere. Period. Someone's getting the data to process on their servers. It may not be META (thank God) but it's still someone. They're going to be quiet about it, META makes headlines... but I don't think people fully appreciate this is a whole new data model for Apple in a sense, with a 3rd party in the mix... and it's unchartered for Apple users who have typically enjoyed a walled-off privacy model.
 
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I wish people would stop using the phrase “integrated into”. For Apple users to utilize ChatGPT, Siri just goes to their servers with the query and the answer is sent back. That’s cooperating with, not integrating with. There is no software from OpenAI needed on any Apple devices for this to work. If you want to, you can download an app, or even get a paid subscription for more features. But that’s a choice one makes.
 
VulchR said:
Agreed, but I will believe the EU is not singling out Apple in a crass protectionist way only when the EU passes regulations that require a common standard for all rechargeable batteries for home and garden power tools, so that batteries can be interchangeable among brands.
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The EU is very much singling out big American companies. The problem there as can be easily seen, is that they have no companies that do what these big American companies do. There are some small, more local ones, but nothing at the scale. Also EU corporations are rarely as profitable. EU and country regulations as to investment, employment and finances are such that developing the sort of industries we do with ease, is almost impossible over there. They look at our companies as easy pickings.

They can’t tax much more, and their cradle to grave care is overwhelming their systems. So they look here, rub their hands and formulate regulations and “special” taxes that only affect American giant companies, in the hope they can squeeze some money out of them. I find it interesting that companies in the EU are affected less, because of size and the lack of major companies in the various industries they’re singling out. Additionally, some if the regulations are actually more than stupid. The entire idea of banning chard]ger sales with new phones is an example. What is the point of that? They state that people already have chargers, so they don’t need new ones. That sounds good, until you realize that nobody is going to be able to use an old USB mini plug charger on a new phone. And even o,dear busbc chargers are too small. Anyone here still have some old Apple 5 watt chargers? I’ve got a draw of them. Does anyone really want to use one with a new phone? No? I’m not surprised. So we still have to buy new ines if we want our devices to charge at full speed.
 
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fl010 said:
How? With a great confirmation message? AppleIntelligence may send text, images, documents to OpenAI.

How do you want to anonymize private queries about a person, or the current phone screenshot or a personal document?
Why do you trust a 3rd party privacy policy?

Everytime Siri is overwhelmed with a private question/query, you will have to decline to not send data to OpenAI?
Click to expand...

You can avoid any information being sent to OpenAI in two ways:

1) Don't use Siri

or

2) decline every time Siri asks if it should send the information to ChatGPT.

If you voluntarily of your own free will sends information to ChatGPT, it's not a privacy issue.

Even if you send information to ChatGPT, OpenAi is contractually hindered from tracking IP addresses, remembering your queries and to train on the data.

Apple will in addition send the query through their system, obfuscating the real IP address.

If you limit your queries to questions which deals with your device and the data on it, most of the queries will be handled by Apple Intelligence and Siri will not offer to send it to ChatGPT.
 
Rob1547 said:
BUT... I think what people are overlooking here, is this same data from AI on Apple devices is still being farmed out somewhere. Period. Someone's getting the data to process on their servers.
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This is not correct.

Your queries will be handled the following way:

1) Simple queries about your device and the data on it -> locally on device
2) More complex queries about your device and the data on it -> Apple's private cloud
3) General quieres -> Siri asks if you want it to send it to ChatGPT -> ChatGPT

Most queries people will ask Siri about will belong to 1) or 2).
 
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