Fine, don't buy it. But as of now, you don't even know what it can and cannot do. Sheesh!
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Apple's Camera-Equipped AirPods Confirmed: See Them in Action
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Fine, don't buy it. But as of now, you don't even know what it can and cannot do. Sheesh!
jz0309
macrumors P6
but isn't that true for every single product rumor posted here? and the opinions range from far left to far right, and people people are entitled to voice their opinion, and then there are people who have opinions about facts ...
Treat the site as that, an exchange of opinions and enjoy it as such, and, do not judge other peoples opinions, we are all different and that is a good thing.
Eh? There is not a huge vacuum here.
a stateless (doesn't retain copies ) inferencing system .
Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in the cloud - Apple Security Research
Secure and private AI processing in the cloud poses a formidable new challenge. To support advanced features of Apple Intelligence with larger foundation models, we created Private Cloud Compute (PCC), a groundbreaking cloud intelligence system designed specifically for private AI processing...
Apple Visual Intelligence works now on some devices.
Use visual intelligence on iPhone
With Apple Intelligence on iPhone, use visual intelligence to learn more about the places, objects, and text around you.
OS 27.
" ... Complex questions were previously handed off to ChatGPT, but that's no longer necessary. ..."
Here's What's New With Visual Intelligence in iOS 27
Visual Intelligence is getting a big upgrade in iOS 27. It's now easier to find than it was before, and there are new Visual Intelligence capabilities. Apple also expanded it to the iPad and the Mac, so you can use the same features across devices. Camera App Apple moved Visual Intelligence to...
www.macrumors.com
History
"... Meanwhile, a standalone Siri app keeps your history in one place. It syncs that history privately through iCloud. ..."
iOS 27 public beta 3 is here with Siri AI, iPhone speed upgrades, and more - 9to5Mac
The third iOS 27 public beta is now available for iPhone. It gives users an early chance to try Apple’s...
9to5mac.com
This isn't being invented to only uniquely work with the camera module in a airpod. Apple Visual Intelligence is a generally avaialbe system. How it gets activated is the major difference.
Bugs versus designed for functionality are two very substantially different things. Apple fixed those 50 security bugs and did the primary designed for functionality of the subsystem impacted radically change. Screen sharing stopped being screen sharing because a bug was fixed? No. That bug was not the primary design purpose of screen sharing.
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Everything you're saying isn't even based on facts, though. It's based on....nothing. You have no information to even base an opinion on, the way you're going on. And no, it's not true for every single product rumor here. In most cases, much more is known about the product, or what the product will likely be capable of, even if it hasn't been released yet. For this one? Not much at all.
ftaok
macrumors 604
Totally agree. No one knows what these cameras are even really capable of doing anyways. And even if shady stuff could be performed, once they're out in the field and the use cases are fully borne out, Apple will do the right thing and make the necessary adjustments.
The comparison is like when AirTags were released and everyone lost their minds over the possibility of stalkers and being the target of roving car thieves. Apple made the right changes, even though they reduced the usefulness of the product (as a tracker to get your stolen goods back). They landed the right balance.
I expect whatever these Airpods end up being, Apple will land the right balance ... eventually.
spazzcat
macrumors 601
jz0309
macrumors P6
spazzcat
macrumors 601
Except Apple has local AI processing on newer devices. And use a private cloud as an extension.
What I never got with the brouhaha over AirTags was, didn't we already have trackers out there by other companies? Like Tile, for example? I don't remember people freaking out about Tile, so why did people freak out over AirTags? It's like, because it was Apple the media went overboard (as the media usually does in the United States), and people got stupid (like also happens so much in this country).
spazzcat
macrumors 601
The bad actor is already out there using a homemade device and you have no idea they are recording you.
Mr_Ed
macrumors 68000
There is no “except” about this concern. If I am having a face-to-face conversation with you, it’s for you and you only, not for the “AI back end du jour”.
Or apple could just build a perception system and not a camera picture making system. "eyes" instead of a 'camera'. If no persistent photo/video is created then there is no vilation of that law.
The feature here is to find out what some things are, not necessarily recording for persistent/transferable to someone else status.
Other vendors like Google/Amazon do have an 'off' selection. This is one of those we are doing it privately so eager to be helpful is treated as a 'feature'. It is substantive wasted compute time , but since Apple isn't paying for that (done with your equipment), they don't mind the waste.
Thepresumption here is that this is trying to take persistent pictures as oppose to a perception system (i.e., 'eyes for Siri'). If someone sees you you don't have any property/copy rights violation at all. To have property must have something tangible that can be exchanged and/or transferred. Nobody needs a image rights release form just to see you. That is perception, not property.
If read the title and author of a bookcover is not a copyright violtation. There also have to copy a substantive amount of material also.
This argument is tiresome. "No expectation of privacy" is not the same as "I'm in public so you have my permission to follow me around and record everything I say and do, and dispose of it at your pleasure". The issue is not expectation of privacy, but rather the human decency each of us should expect of our fellow citizens.
Thirty years ago I might see a dispute over a bill in a restaurant or other service business become a bit heated, and while the people in the immediate vicinity might be a bit interested in the matter, it would eventually get resolved and we would all go on with our lives, including the people directly involved.
Today? At the slightest whiff of a disagreement, cameras are at hand, and they press in on the participants as if it's destined for the nightly news. Even if it stays relatively civil, the video eventually might find its way to TikTok, where it will then get to YouTube and X, followed by a succession of opinions on who was right or wrong. If the Unacceptable Words of the Day are uttered, then the person who has gone against The Current Thing will find themselves doxxed, and out of a job, with people gathering in their front yard to confront them.
Graphical User Interfaces are more 'normal' form of interaction than using a computer purely with a command line. It is immaterial whether the system is sentient or not. The relevant factor is whether it is easier to use. If folks don't have to put tons of active thought into how they are talking to the system will be much easier to use. And normal is a good thing. Maximal abnormal is how you make systems harder to use.
What does this have to do with a camera being in the AirPod? The ability to listen in and record conversations is built into all bluetooth headsets that have a microphone attached to them. That is already 'out there'. Same thing with the smartphone with microphones in folks pockets nearby .
Not sure where your are but in USA generally you have to have a reasonable expectation of privacy. A crowded mall , subway car, football stadium is not a context where 'reasonable' secluded privacy. You can hope that folks will be kind and not pay attention, but expectation? No.
What it doesn't know it won't conclude on. A large extent will be because it doesn't know what some elements are. It is a recognizer which will recognize things that it is trained to resolve.
The part that is more relevant is whether or how deeply it starts to engage in "Phone a friend" to when it does not know.
"...
Other Visual Intelligence Capabilities
Visual Intelligence has a long list of things it can be used for, and these options have been available in earlier versions of iOS.- Identify plants, animals, insects, landmarks, art, sculptures, books, and more.
- Add items to your calendar from a piece of paper like an event poster or flyer.
- Use Google Image Search to find similar images.
- Search Etsy, Amazon, Anthropologie, and other apps for an item that you capture with the camera.
- Provide details about a business in front of you, like hours of operation.
- Translate, summarize, and read text aloud.
Blinding sending the photo off to 3rd parties user may or may not be aware of would be bad.
If Apple is using this as a perception system ( 'eyes for Siri' ) then there is zero need for the images to be persistent or shared with 3rd parties (who have their own rules). The normal mode for Apple Visual Intelligence is that the photo is put into Photos collection and then go find out what it is. This system really doesn't need to work that way if it part of the perspection sharing between you and Siri at a moment in time. All that needs to be records is what (the context) of what were discussing not the RAW image.
One reason Apple is 'behind' in the AI mega model race is that is decidedly not the road they took. There are several folks (including Apple) trying to do more with 'less'. The objective is not to build. the largest possible , all knowing, all seeing model. It is to build a model that is useful for a specific purpose. The more specific there is less requirments that is be as large as possible. That is partially because entities like OpenAI, Anthropic can't pull huge valuations unless they are sucking money out of more peoples pockets. One path to that is make folks pay to rent time in their huge datacenters (they may or may not own).
The last 40 years of personal computing has shown that more 'horsepower' has come to smaller devices over time. To read a book title and author off an image doesn't not take a 1 trillion parameter LLM model. OCR was being done years ago on much less capable hardware. Visual inferencing was being over a decade ago on less capable hardware.
if do zero homework then lacking knowledge comes that process, not from what is knowable.
Apple has talked about what Private Cloud Compute does.
Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in the cloud - Apple Security Research
Secure and private AI processing in the cloud poses a formidable new challenge. To support advanced features of Apple Intelligence with larger foundation models, we created Private Cloud Compute (PCC), a groundbreaking cloud intelligence system designed specifically for private AI processing...
Some data is sent to be inferenced on and then the whole interium dataset is erased.
If Apple optionally punts to the web and/or 3rd parties when Siri doesn't 'know' that would be bad. If they allow Siri to say "I don't know and just stop" then can probably be relatively certain that it didn't go anywhere ( if don't see a snapshot in photos or in the Siri history log. For the latter, Logging the picture as opposed to the metadata would be relatively dumb. Even more so if didn't know what it was. )
Again there is nothing material about the camera aspect here. Airpods with a microphone and the privacy of a verbal conversation are nothing new. If you don't trust the person at all what is to stop them from revealing your conversation to someone with without using a recording device?
spazzcat
macrumors 601
You are going to have a rought time over the next several years ...
Luftkopf
macrumors 68000
Normally I would agree with you @citysnaps and normally I suspect I’m regarded around here as a bit of a shill, as I typically argue in favour of Apple in many of the situations this forum likes to complain about, but this still makes me uncomfortable. Even if is doesn’t record visual information, and everything is encrypted and locked in PCC, I’m still not enthused by the proliferation of visually based AI devices.
Maybe I’m starting to get old now, and I’m losing the unbridled enthusiasm for tech I’ve had since the 80s.
Definitely a big step for people with disabilities. For everyone else....why? Anything to get you to step up into a higher tiered product and pay 15% more. Look at the new bauble!
Don't fall for the okey doke!
Don't fall for the okey doke!
What if we look at the demo as currently constituted and think.."why do I need this in my life?"
The cognitive dissonance is astounding. People complaining about $4 a gallon gas and $20 burritos yet they are the same people first in line for AirPods with cameras.
That's where I've found myself. A decade ago, maybe even five years ago, I would have been thrilled with this idea. However, the dystopia we are hurtling towards makes me less inclined to support new and shiny tech solely because it's new and shiny. It's a massive change from where I was 40 years ago, but I really don't think a lot of the things we are sold these days are improving our lives.
It’s not a tired argument, it’s actually been decided in court. Anyone can be filmed on the street or in a public place. That does not mean harassment, and sticking a camera in someone’s face.
As this discussion has drifted from the Apple AirPods + Vision and towards a general "cameras everywhere are creepy" talk, I was speaking in general terms, not specifically to the AirPods.
But simply glancing at someone doesn't offer the possibility of deriving a benefit - unless we want to include someone surveilling someone specifically. In that case, its for a specific condition, such as suspicion of criminal activity (state) or violation of a contract (civil).
If someone posts the likeness of an unwilling subject online, someone is benefitting from it. The web site owner might get ad revenue clicks. The server or VPS collects a fee. The cloud storage facility gets paid. And so on. In that case, the image itself should be considered "prior art" and the person who owns it - the unwilling subject - has a say in how it's disposed.
Thats because the copyrighted content of the book is between the covers. The prior art of a human being is between their ears as well as all over their skin. This is why most newspaper photographers learned to get permission before publishing photos. At least back in the days of newsprint they did.
