Apple's AI Partnership With Alibaba Draws Scrutiny From Washington

[MacRumors]

The Trump administration is scrutinizing Apple's partnership with Chinese tech giant Alibaba to bring AI features to iPhones in China, according to a new report from The New York Times.

Washington officials are concerned the collaboration could help Chinese AI providers collect data to improve their models, potentially benefiting China's military. Defense Department and intelligence officials are reportedly examining Alibaba's ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army.

Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi called the lack of transparency about the agreement "extremely disturbing," questioning why Apple would choose to work with Alibaba given its alleged connections to the Chinese government.

The administration has discussed whether Alibaba and other Chinese AI companies should be placed on a list prohibiting them from doing business with U.S. companies, according to sources familiar with the deliberations cited by NYT.

Apple hasn't publicly acknowledged the AI partnership, though Alibaba's chairman confirmed it in February. The deal comes as Apple works to bring its Apple Intelligence features to the Chinese market, where the company has seen its smartphone market share decline.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple's AI Partnership With Alibaba Draws Scrutiny From Washington

 

[Pruus]

The enemy is not where you see him or try to find. It’s I yourself America. In Yourself.

 

[Fuzzball84]

Huge hurdles for tech companies in the age where barriers and mistrust of each other heighten.

 

[Johnny907]

1) have they seen Apple’s AI? Yeah no one is stealing from that.
2) as for info gathering to improve models, China has how many billions to scrape data from without having to step foot across their border?
I think we’re safe.

 

[rizzo41999]

The enemy is not where you see him or try to find. It’s I yourself America. In Yourself.

Good one?

 

[DrJR]

The enemy is not where you see him or try to find. It’s I yourself America. In Yourself.

What made us the greatest country in the world is still alive and well, that comes from within. The Marxist ideologies attempting to sully us are not from within. Nice try.

 

[krewger]

I think Trump is confused on what trade actually means. If one’s focus is to bring back manufacturing in America, and to compete with other nations for exports - export - meaning, selling to others globally. Mimicking North Korea going down a path of isolationism is a bad idea… It’s not trade if you restrict selling all your worthwhile goods that have flourished only because of your openness. Nothing America produces, is impossible for anyone to do. The faster we develop AI. The faster we can replace politicians.

 

[dannys1]

America doesn't want Apple to do stuff
The EU doesn't want Apple to do stuff
China doesn't want Apple to do stuff

I'm not surprised some startups can get ahead of the game.

 

[krull1015]

So tired of our government villainizing other countries, particularly China; when we are the real enemies of the World. Call me anti-American but a spade is a spade.

 

[dannys1]

I think Trump is confused on what trade actually means. If one’s focus is to bring back manufacturing in America, and to compete with other nations for exports - export - meaning, selling to others globally. Mimicking North Korea going down a path of isolationism is a bad idea… It’s not trade if you restrict selling all your worthwhile goods that have flourished only because of your openness. Nothing America produces, is impossible for anyone to do. The faster we develop AI. The faster we can replace politicians.

What I find very strange is that "Globalism" a free market capitalist policy is now considered "left wing" by the far right -they've come up with some kind of conspiracy theory where they think George Soros and Bill Gates are running everything in the world (and these are left wing bodies apparently) and are in charge of every government in the world.

The mental gymnastics they're having to do is insane.

 

[rikki_t]

Meanwhile America imports Dutch chip fab machines for a huge new American chip fab plant run by Korean knowhow, to build chips to power Ai progress built on copyright infringed date scraped from the rest of the world, sounds fine to me but apart from the theft, deceit and lies what exactly is American about all this ?

 

[Superhai]

now considered "left wing" by the far right

It is still right, but the new American "far right" is so far to the right that everything becomes left.

 

[cjsuk]

It is still right, but the new American "far right" is so far to the right that everything becomes left.

Best to learn from other people's mistakes rather than repeat them. The mistake here is assuming any "far" ideology be it left or right is a winning position that leads to anything other than piles of bodies, decades of suffering for the survivors and financial collapse.

Of course it's easy to blame the "red terror" when the accusers are doing exactly the same thing. Hence it's a little hypocritical complaining about propping up the Chinese here when the Chinese are propping up the USA properly to a much larger degree. Perhaps they should stop shipping everything to the USA as it might prop up the US war machine?

 

[raziel101]

So tired of our government villainizing other countries, particularly China; when we are the real enemies of the World. Call me anti-American but a spade is a spade.

Have you moved out to another country yet?

 

[nathan_reilly]

What made us the greatest country in the world is still alive and well, that comes from within. The Marxist ideologies attempting to sully us are not from within. Nice try.

ah yes, we’re so great an exceptional bc of our inner and innate qualities which are not found anywhere else. of course.

 

[TechWhisperer]

Trump’s grasp of international business is about as solid as his spray tan, all surface, no substance. The man treats global trade like a reality TV show where he’s the star. Meanwhile, Apple is getting absolutely wrecked by the very things that used to make them golden: their woke DEI obsession, those precious overseas sweatshops, and supply chains stretched thinner than his excuse for foreign policy. Their progressive virtue signaling and profit-hungry outsourcing just handed Trump the perfect stick to beat them with. You literally can’t make this stuff up.

 

[xander49x]

what does this have to do with the U.S.?

 

[antiprotest]

Apple needs all the help it can get. Even installing a Furby voice module would improve Siri.

 

[attila]

I'm equally concerned about USA collecting my data for use with training their military or worse 🤷‍♀️

 

[attila]

Have you moved out to another country yet?

Yeah, because that's such an easy thing to do.

 

[jooish]

With Safari, you can choose what search engine you want to have as default.

Wouldn't it be best to create a process where LLMs can be approved by Apple and you can choose which one you want to plug in to? They could also let users choose LLMs that aren't approved, but give multiple warnings before applying it.

I've been using AI far more than Google search. If I could replace complicated Siri requests with my LLM choice, then I'd have it enabled on my Apple devices right now. Until then, Apple Intelligence is off.

 

[Nekronos]

What I find very strange is that "Globalism" a free market capitalist policy is now considered "left wing" by the far right -they've come up with some kind of conspiracy theory where they think George Soros and Bill Gates are running everything in the world (and these are left wing bodies apparently) and are in charge of every government in the world.

The mental gymnastics they're having to do is insane.

You must have gone off to some dark corners of the web to find that fringe theory because I've not read or heard anyone consider capitalism left wing.

 

[cocky jeremy]

So tired of our government villainizing other countries, particularly China; when we are the real enemies of the World. Call me anti-American but a spade is a spade.

Then go move to another one of those "great" countries. Problem solved.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I think Trump is confused on what trade actually means.

Very true.

He thinks it means "I get what I want" .. "I win" .. "others get screwed"

Don mistakenly sees it as zero sum.

He's a narcissistic imbecile

 

[DrJR]

I think Trump is confused on what trade actually means. If one’s focus is to bring back manufacturing in America, and to compete with other nations for exports - export - meaning, selling to others globally. Mimicking North Korea going down a path of isolationism is a bad idea… It’s not trade if you restrict selling all your worthwhile goods that have flourished only because of your openness. Nothing America produces, is impossible for anyone to do. The faster we develop AI. The faster we can replace politicians.

Yeah, lets talk about food.... and why we are not going allow china to own our farmland. We are negotiating better trade terms, not shutting of trade.