Report Details Turmoil Behind Apple's AI Efforts, 'Siri X,' and Headset Voice Controls

[TVreporter]

Apple's admirable position on privacy is unfortunately going to shoot itself in the foot when it comes to Siri and AI.

Open the vault Tim and buy up one of the top AI's and use it to upgrade Siri.

The race for the AI lead is already off to a fast start and Apple is lagging well behind.

 

[Choco Taco]

That sounds like semi-independent confirmation that Apple means it when it's talking about privacy?

That's good.

Privacy has nothing to do with why Siri is bad.

 

[nottorp]

Privacy has nothing to do with why Siri is bad.

I know Siri is bad, i use an iPhone I was picking a piece of info on another topic from the article.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Apple's admirable position on privacy is unfortunately going to shoot itself in the foot when it comes to Siri and AI.

Not really. When comparisons are run with “what do people request most often”, all of the services are on par. I’d guess that in 3 years, there will still be MORE people choosing their phone based on something as simple as blue bubbles than the features of the supported AI.

 

[Brainjax44]

I'm convinced that everyone alive now thats interested in using Siri has fully given up using it at all because each time they do, siri responds with "sorry, I cant do that". They have absolutely no reason to try again anytime in the near future. So, really, not only does apple need to build a more functional siri, but they'll have to spend a ton on an ongoing ad campaign to simply remind people that siri still exists and convince them to give it another go.

On a side note, how on earth can siri not turn off my lights and fan at the same time? Why do I need to say it one at a time? ugh.

 

[maxoakland]

This report misses the main reasons people criticize Siri. The problem is it's unreliable. Sometimes it just doesn't work at all doing things it should be able to do.

Apple executives are said to have dismissed proposals to give Siri the ability to conduct extended back-and-forth conversations, claiming that the feature would be difficult to control and gimmicky. Apple's uncompromising stance on privacy has also created challenges for enhancing Siri, with the company pushing for more of the virtual assistant's functions to be performed on-device.

That's a good thing

Cook and other senior executives requested changes to Siri to prevent embarassing responses and the company prefers Siri's responses to be pre-written by a team of around 20 writers, rather than AI-generated.

No problem with that. I don't want Siri to have a conversation with, I want Siri to be reliable and do the things it's already supposed to do WELL

There were also specific decisions to exclude information such as iPhone prices from Siri to push users directly to Apple's website instead.

That's a horrible nickel-and-dime idea that is pretty typical of Tim Cook's Apple

Siri engineers working on the feature that uses material from the web to answer questions clashed with the design team over how accurate the responses had to be in 2019. The design team demanded a near-perfect accuracy rate before the feature could be released.

That's a great thing. I totally commend Apple on caring about accuracy, unlike all the people trying to push ChatGPT and other AI bots that just make things up on the fly

 

[Abazigal]

So a couple of engineers left Apple.

They are presumably now working for Google.

The same company that released Bard.

Somehow, I think Apple will do just fine.

 

[dba415]

So a couple of engineers left Apple.

They are presumably now working for Google.

The same company that released Bard.

Somehow, I think Apple will do just fine.

You realize chatGPT also came out of people who worked for Google right. Bard is a nice product that's rapidly improving. Google has something way better that they are afraid to release to the public. Google has been working on AI the longest out of any company out there.

 

[Surf Monkey]

You realize chatGPT also came out of people who worked for Google right. Bard is a nice product that's rapidly improving. Google has something way better that they are afraid to release to the public. Google has been working on AI the longest out of any company out there.

That we know of.

 

[Abazigal]

You realize chatGPT also came out of people who worked for Google right. Bard is a nice product that's rapidly improving. Google has something way better that they are afraid to release to the public. Google has been working on AI the longest out of any company out there.

Despite their impressive demos, I can’t help but feel that these LLM “AIs” are a flash in the pan. Sure, they have their uses, but it seems like everybody is rushing to shoehorn them into everything, sometimes without rhyme or reason.

That’s even before we delve into the potential privacy and ethical implications of these LLMs basically vacuuming up massive amounts of data, most of which is done without express knowledge or permission of their creators (cough, Macrumours, cough).

First movers in tech are not necessarily the real winners in the long run. This feels like the early days of the crypto craze all over again.

 

[dba415]

Despite their impressive demos, I can’t help but feel that these LLM “AIs” are a flash in the pan. Sure, they have their uses, but it seems like everybody is rushing to shoehorn them into everything, sometimes without rhyme or reason.

That’s even before we delve into the potential privacy and ethical implications of these LLMs basically vacuuming up massive amounts of data, most of which is done without express knowledge or permission of their creators (cough, Macrumours, cough).

First movers in tech are not necessarily the real winners in the long run. This feels like the early days of the crypto craze all over again.

Meh. Crypto provided no value to anybody. AI actually has a lot of use cases.

 

[Surf Monkey]

Meh. Crypto provided no value to anybody. AI actually has a lot of use cases.

Like essentially pirating mountains of copyright protected text, images, video and so forth?

 

[257Loner]

What if there was a ChatGPT phone?
With AI so integrated you could talk to it like a real personal assistant....

"tell my partner something romantic, find some time after lunch in a park when it's not raining to book sally and steve for that meeting - send a poll and find the best time and add all the ingredients to my reminders app to bake a lemon pie and order the ingredients to the isle layout in my local supermarket"

If I could do that, I'm dumping my lovely iPhone, it's innovative 'dynamic love island' with an action button..for ACTION.. a beautiful brushed aluminium piece of non-functional junk in the bin and geting this!

I'm caring less for 'pretty' as i get older and grumpier and wiser and just want to use my phone, not look at it.

That's where Apple needs to take Siri. Supercharge Siri with a Large Language Model, activate Siri with your AirPods, and you've invented the ChatGPT phone of the future!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

On a side note, how on earth can siri not turn off my lights and fan at the same time? Why do I need to say it one at a time? ugh.

Isn’t that down to how you set up your devices? I’ve got HomeKit devices all over my house, and while I CAN address them individually, I rarely do. If I’m leaving a room and want the lights and fan off, I’d create a command that groups the lights and the fan and invoke that command.

 

[Tagbert]

I'm convinced that everyone alive now thats interested in using Siri has fully given up using it at all because each time they do, siri responds with "sorry, I cant do that". They have absolutely no reason to try again anytime in the near future. So, really, not only does apple need to build a more functional siri, but they'll have to spend a ton on an ongoing ad campaign to simply remind people that siri still exists and convince them to give it another go.

On a side note, how on earth can siri not turn off my lights and fan at the same time? Why do I need to say it one at a time? ugh.

I am still using using Siri on a daily basis and it works well within limited use cases. I add items to the reminders list. I set alarms and timers. I turn on and off homekit switches and sometimes I ask it for the weather. Most of the time, it does those things quite well, though sometimes it has trouble with non-responsive HomeKit devices but I suspect that is those devices falling off of Wi-Fi.

I don’t try to get Siri to look up complex information. I’ll usually just do a web search as I want to evaluate the source and not just take whatever Siri finds. Yes, Siri does not do “and“ statements. It should after all this time but this article hints at some of the organizational disfunction that seems to prevent Apple from trying to make Siri more effective. I understand that privacy concerns might complicate how Siri accesses your data but it should not prevent them from trying things. From this and other articles I’ve read on the subject, it seems like the people who might work on Siri have a classic bureaucratic organization where every both disagrees with each other but is covering their ass by not doing anything. That’s not a good sign.

I’m not saying “insert ChatGPT” behind Siri, but I do wish that Apple would take some risks and try to improve Siri. Just adding a little bit of the context awareness and conversational interaction of an LLM would help people get better results. It is frustrating when Siri fails but there is not way to explain to Siri what you really want. That causes a lot of frustration.

 

[Abazigal]

Apple's admirable position on privacy is unfortunately going to shoot itself in the foot when it comes to Siri and AI.

Open the vault Tim and buy up one of the top AI's and use it to upgrade Siri.

The race for the AI lead is already off to a fast start and Apple is lagging well behind.

Let me play devil’s advocate.

ChatGPT isn’t a product. Yes, the technology behind it is arguably very impressive, but it’s unclear what the go to market for this is, much less how Microsoft intends to monetise it or address its numerous shortcomings. The threat to Apple is also questionable, especially if Apple (and consumers) can simply switch to Bing via Safari. Remember, Microsoft has no smartphone platform left to compete.

And if you want, it’s currently possible to access chatGPT vis siri using a shortcut.

S-GPT 1.0.2 Brings Date and Time Awareness, Integration with macOS Services Menu, Passthrough Mode, Better HomePod Support, and More

I just published version 1.0.2 of S-GPT, the shortcut I released last week to have conversations with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and integrate it directly with native features of Apple’s OSes. You can find the updated download link at the end of this post, in the original article, and in the MacStories...

www.macstories.net

And if this isn’t profitable or threatens their existing ad business, it’s likely only a matter of time before google drops Bard.

I think this is where people tend to confuse invention and innovation. For example, it’s one thing to invent the car. It’s another to find a means of mass-producing it for cheap and making it accessible to the masses.

This is where Apple shines - in figuring out go to market, and they do this so much better than anyone else. And if people are leaving Apple because they couldn’t access the user data they wanted, I don’t know about you, but it just makes me want to stick with Apple even more. I will take data protection and a gimped Siri over a fancy AI to chat with any time of the day.

 

[Fraserpatty]

I would prefer privacy protection too, but that doesn’t mean that Apple is off the hook for letting Siri languish. I admit having no knowledge of the technology involved, but I can’t believe that Siri could not be a whole lot better, even without becoming a member of the large language model group. Some of the things that we know Siri can do have been removed from its capabilities. Put those back, Apple, the work has already been done on it. It would cost you nothing. Leave all its functions once programmed in , not to be taken away. That would give people confidence they could trust Siri to be consistent. Not everybody needs to write term papers or whatever else chat GPT does that makes it better than Siri. For most people’s needs Siri is very capable if she could do what she does dependably.

 

[nottorp]

That's where Apple needs to take Siri. Supercharge Siri with a Large Language Model, activate Siri with your AirPods, and you've invented the ChatGPT phone of the future!

A Large Language Model is unfortunately a text processing model. What use is it if Siri doesn't understand the audio?

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Google has something way better that they are afraid to release to the public.

in fear of it going the same way as Stadia and Google+, right?

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

What if there was a ChatGPT phone?
With AI so integrated you could talk to it like a real personal assistant....

"tell my partner something romantic,

Why do you need an AI to do that? Think of something romantic on your own, making a machine do it is the opposite of romantic.

 

[rp2011]

People who can afford it, are eventually going to choose to buy the phone that keeps them safest from AI. I like my “walled garden”
If i didn't i would own an android phone.

Expect the issues with side-loading, spam and viruses etc. to only grow exponentially and far more malicious and difficult to mitigate in the age if AI, and i hope Apple continues to think of privacy and caution first when it comes to AI.

Whoever cares most about protection, will get the consumers willing to pay a premium for their services and products.
Everyone else will be slumming in the AI toxic waste.

Remember, it’s malicious individuals who will be at the forefront of exploiting AI. That is the cold and absolute truth.
Mitigation is what Apple and everyone else should be focusing on. Siri is fine as it is. I dont need it to do my taxes or have a conversation with it. I'll go elsewhere for that.

 

[257Loner]

A Large Language Model is unfortunately a text processing model. What use is it if Siri doesn't understand the audio?

Good point. I suppose HAL 9000 is still a ways away.

 

[Garrett30]

Siri and Apple's use of AI has been severely held back by caution and organizational dysfunction, according to over three dozen former Apple employees who spoke to The Information's Wayne Ma.

The extensive paywalled report explains why former Apple employees who worked in the company's AI and machine learning groups believe that a lack of ambition and organizational dysfunction have hindered Siri and the company's AI technologies. Apple's virtual assistant is apparently "widely derided" inside the company for its lack of functionality and minimal improvement over time.

By 2018, the team working on Siri had apparently "devolved into a mess, driven by petty turf battles between senior leaders and heated arguments over the direction of the assistant." Siri's leadership did not want to invest in building tools to analyse Siri's usage and engineers lacked the ability to obtain basic details such as how many people were using the virtual assistant and how often they were doing so. The data that was obtained about Siri coming from the data science and engineering team was simply not being used, with some former employees calling it "a waste of time and money."

Many Apple employees purportedly left the company because it was too slow to make decisions or too conservative in its approach to new AI technologies, including the large-language models that underpin chatbots like ChatGPT. Apple CEO Tim Cook personally attempted to persuade engineers who helped Apple modernize its search technology to stay at the company, before they left to work on large-language models at Google.

Apple executives are said to have dismissed proposals to give Siri the ability to conduct extended back-and-forth conversations, claiming that the feature would be difficult to control and gimmicky. Apple's uncompromising stance on privacy has also created challenges for enhancing Siri, with the company pushing for more of the virtual assistant's functions to be performed on-device.

Cook and other senior executives requested changes to Siri to prevent embarassing responses and the company prefers Siri's responses to be pre-written by a team of around 20 writers, rather than AI-generated. There were also specific decisions to exclude information such as iPhone prices from Siri to push users directly to Apple's website instead.

Siri engineers working on the feature that uses material from the web to answer questions clashed with the design team over how accurate the responses had to be in 2019. The design team demanded a near-perfect accuracy rate before the feature could be released.

Engineers claim to have spent months persuading Siri designers that not every one of its answers needed human verification, a limitation that made it impossible to scale up Siri to answer the huge number of questions asked by users. Similarly, Apple's design team repeatedly rejected the feature that enabled users to report a concern or issue with the content of a Siri answer, preventing machine-learning engineers from understanding mistakes, because it wanted Siri to appear "all-knowing."

In 2019, the Siri team explored a project to rewrite the virtual assistant from scratch, codenamed "Blackbird." The effort sought to create a lightweight version of Siri that would delegate the creation of functions to app developers and would run on iPhones instead of the cloud to improve performance and privacy. Demos of Blackbird apparently prompted excitement among Apple employees owing to its utility and responsiveness.

Blackbird competed with the work of two senior leaders on the Siri team who were responsible for helping Siri understand and respond to queries. These individuals pushed for their own project, codenamed "Siri X," for the 10th anniversary of the virtual assistant. The project simply aimed to move Siri's processing on-device for privacy reasons, without the lightweight, modular functionality of Blackbird.

Hundreds of employees working on Blackbird were assigned to Siri X, which killed the ambitious project to make Siri more capable. Siri X was mostly completed in 2021 and now many of the voice assistant's functions are processed locally.

Most recently, the group working on Apple's mixed reality headset were reportedly disappointed by the demonstrations provided by the Siri team on how the virtual assistant could control the headset. At one point in the device's development, the headset team considered building an alternative method for controlling the device using voice commands because Siri was deemed to be unsatisfactory.

Article Link: Report Details Turmoil Behind Apple's AI Efforts, 'Siri X,' and Headset Voice Controls

Honestly hate the idea of AI. I prefer apples approach to it all, AI will just continue to invade your privacy. All the people complaining are obviously just lazy, it ain’t that hard to google something yourself or hit the unlock button in the app for your smart lock. Society is in shambles.

 

[Garrett30]

People who can afford it, are eventually going to choose to buy the phone that keeps them safest from AI. I like my “walled garden”
If i didn't i would own an android phone.

Expect the issues with side-loading, spam and viruses etc. to only grow exponentially and far more malicious and difficult to mitigate in the age if AI, and i hope Apple continues to think of privacy and caution first when it comes to AI.

Whoever cares most about protection, will get the consumers willing to pay a premium for their services and products.
Everyone else will be slumming in the AI toxic waste.

Remember, it’s malicious individuals who will be at the forefront of exploiting AI. That is the cold and absolute truth.
Mitigation is what Apple and everyone else should be focusing on. Siri is fine as it is. I dont need it to do my taxes or half a conversation with it. Ill go elsewhere fo that.

100% agree. Just goes to show how lazy society has become when people start complaining about having to google something themselves.

 

[mrothroc]

100% agree. Just goes to show how lazy society has become when people start complaining about having to google something themselves.

The problem is that google searches no longer work. I'm quite adept at searching, but I don't do it for fun, I do it because I want an answer. If I can get the answer without spending tedious time clicking through and reading pages just to discover a) it's an ad, b) it is outdated, or c) it answers a different question, then I will do that.

This morning, I needed to know how to remotely install an app on my child's iPad. Searching google gives me several outdated and, as I learned once I read them, incorrect links. It wasted time, and did not answer the question.

Compare that to the ChatGPT output. Step by step instructions to do what I want.

See for yourself.