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Report: Apple's Next-Gen Version of Siri Is 'On Par' With ChatGPT
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They’ve acquired a lot of AI startups, it’s definitely in the works. I’m sure they’re aware of Siri’s reputation, which can’t take another hit. They need to nail it out of the gate on this next attempt
Bold statement from a company that seems to flub it so much lately.
I've been using GPT steady for only a month now. Of all things, I started using it to make those stupid phony action figure blister packs and then to make pictures.
I've used it for all sort of things now. I really thought AI was a fad or kinda overstated until I started using it. I gotta say Chat GPT is super useful. It's something I use just about every day for things from recipes to working on my motorcycle, to tips for home improvement projects. Recently, I was using it to get travel tips for booking a flight for a vacation.
Of course I don't follow it's suggestions without double checking things myself, but it's super useful to point you in the right direction. The recipies? Awesome. I've cooked up some great meals with the suggestions it's made. I'm happy enough with it that I actually pay for it.
That being said, Apple better bring their feces to a central location (as opposed to depositing it in the place of slumber) if they're even going to touch Chat GPT.
Everything I've seen lately tells me Apple is overhyping the ability of their product and making the biggest mistake a company can make. Disappointing their customers. Again.
If Apple is at all consistent about anything lately, it's that they're consistently underwhelming.
I've been using GPT steady for only a month now. Of all things, I started using it to make those stupid phony action figure blister packs and then to make pictures.
I've used it for all sort of things now. I really thought AI was a fad or kinda overstated until I started using it. I gotta say Chat GPT is super useful. It's something I use just about every day for things from recipes to working on my motorcycle, to tips for home improvement projects. Recently, I was using it to get travel tips for booking a flight for a vacation.
Of course I don't follow it's suggestions without double checking things myself, but it's super useful to point you in the right direction. The recipies? Awesome. I've cooked up some great meals with the suggestions it's made. I'm happy enough with it that I actually pay for it.
That being said, Apple better bring their feces to a central location (as opposed to depositing it in the place of slumber) if they're even going to touch Chat GPT.
Everything I've seen lately tells me Apple is overhyping the ability of their product and making the biggest mistake a company can make. Disappointing their customers. Again.
If Apple is at all consistent about anything lately, it's that they're consistently underwhelming.
Tim Cook and his team missed the lead that they had when they acquired Siri. They need to spend some of the money pile to get back in to the game and then keep developing it.
At this point, the best thing Apple could do is allow third party assistants to be installed (i.e. fully integrated) on iOS. I'm not expecting Siri to be anything other than trash anytime soon.
Apple may have been caught off guard with the whole "generative AI" boom, but that they don't have the talent is nonsense. It just wasn't on their roadmap, which is years ahead of what we see in product and service releases in the public space.
Apple has been working on machine-learning technologies for decades. The first iOS on-screen keyboard utilized machine learning that was years ahead of the competition, for example. They were just caught with their pants down this time. Being first is never their goal, only being better. The new Siri will put the competition to shame.
The current version of Siri already supports "extensions", which is how ChatGPT integration works, at least on macOS. So they've already enabled your idea to an extent.
I want whatever you're smoking
Well after seeing what ChatGPT has to offer and after using it myself….Siri being on par with ChatGPT is a low bar. Great…Siri will just be a slightly more pretty, in an Apple way, version of the same gaslighting, hallucinating mess that is ChatGPT. Here’s my prompt to Siri…” Hey Siri…can you make yourself just intelligent enough to actually be useful in the way my Apple products used to be and by adding real value to the Apple apps that are supposed to work “magically together” and NOT be so intelligent that you become a ketamine hallucinating gaslighter like Elon Musk and Sam Altman ? Thank you Siri.”
Apple bought Pixelmator. The iPhones are constantly relying on hardware performance for upgrades. Apple should stop spreading themselves thin with generative AI that's prone to halucinations and controversial generation, and instead invest heavily on leveraging AI in Media Library, Photo Editing, and automatic Video Compilation features....completely on-device.
Take on Adobe, Instagram, TikTok....all of them when it comes to editing.
Take on Adobe, Instagram, TikTok....all of them when it comes to editing.
We saw what happened when Apple tried to do that last year
The technology behind LLM's is not rocket science. If Apple has really put full power behind this, surpassing ChatGPT should not be impossible. And if they can somehow put part of this in silicon, they might end up far ahead of any competion.
But than again, they might just completely f it up 🤷♂️
But than again, they might just completely f it up 🤷♂️
I really don’t like being a downer on Apple, but I’ll believe this when I see it. Siri today isn’t even on par with Siri of 2014. We’ve been hearing rumors of Siri getting up to snuff for years now, yet its trajectory seems to be in reverse.
Would love it to be true, but until the public release proves it, I’m not even going to believe a WWDC demo.
Should be interesting to see WWDC this year, if nothing else.
Would love it to be true, but until the public release proves it, I’m not even going to believe a WWDC demo.
Should be interesting to see WWDC this year, if nothing else.
A lot of the "Apple cannot make a modem" and "Apple cannot make a GPU" vibe here...
It's easy to make these sorts of strong claims when you know nothing about what's involved in making an LLM (or modem, or GPU) and nothing about what's going on inside Apple.
Meanwhile in the real world we have things like this
which has led to things like Mamba and similar linear or sub-linear attention schemes or attention replacements.
Apple looks like it's behind for the same reason they looked like they were behind in modem – they have somewhat different goals from the mainstream, and they won't release until those goals are met.
In the case of the modem, the goals were not just to implement the spec (like any other modem) but to hit certain power levels.
In the case of the LLM, the additional goals appear to include
- lower power (always ...)
- the usual security/privacy stuff
- a deep set of APIs that both expose the LLM and give the LLM agentic power
You can see this if you track the Apple papers. It's not that they are behind others, it's that they're continually looking at different types of things from others. For example, if you quantize an LLM, sure performance goes down a little acrossa range of tasks; that's expected. But exactly WHERE does the performance go down? What's the TYPE of functionality that's hurt most by quantization? That's the sort of question Apple is investigating and that I don't see anyone else investigating.
Tearing Siri down and starting from scratch sounds like the right approach, it's just weird they apparently got cheap on investing in AI, not purchasing the necessary hardware and infrastructure, and personnel. They're apparently sitting on ~$50B in cash and short-term investments (and I'm sure they could come up with a lot more if they needed to). If they haven't been hoarding that all these years for this, then what? Seems like AI is THE thing that comes around once a generation that you need to spend some of that on.
There had to be a lot of people at the company who recognized AI was a tidal wave that was going to dwarf distractive projects like the VR goggles and self-driving cars. And something that could directly benefit all their existing and future customers, not a small subset.
There had to be a lot of people at the company who recognized AI was a tidal wave that was going to dwarf distractive projects like the VR goggles and self-driving cars. And something that could directly benefit all their existing and future customers, not a small subset.
I don’t know what you mean by “I will billy when ice seat”, would you like me to search the web for that?
Well, we'd all like to believe that, but honestly, I think that they're incredibly behind - horrifically behind and quite frankly, they seem at sea.
What you say though, sums up why though - Apple are so used to rolling out very controlled experiences, that I think that their corporate culture was not very well prepared to first recognise and then develop something that by it's very nature is unpredictable and cannot be precisely controlled.
Also, GenAI heralds the end of the App Store business really, as so much of how we interact with our computers will be via GenAI - and not apps.
Apple either unconsciously recognised that and shied away from it, or they knew full well what it would mean and sought to hold back the tide.
Whatever the case, they are behind and they can't stop the changes that GenAI will bring to computing.