Tim Cook Responds to Rise of ChatGPT, Says AI's Potential is 'Very Interesting'

[laptech]

He didn’t say that either of those things, or talk about anyone else. He said,

there are a "number of issues that need to be sorted" out with the technology and that it is "very important to be deliberate and thoughtful" in regards to how artificial intelligence is used.​

You may have misread it.

No, you've misread it because he did say it

He added that Apple will continue to weave artificial intelligence into its products on a "very thoughtful basis."

You do no use the word 'thoughtful' in this context unless you are trying to convey a message to others. You also need to bare in mind another MR thread on the topic of Apple's AI and how it is floundering when compared to it's competitors.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/microsoft-planning-privacy-focused-version-of-chatgpt-as-apple-ai-efforts-flounder.2388428/

Therefore Tim Cook is going to know about Apple's floundering efforts into AI and thus speaking about AI saying that Apple is weaving AI into it's products on a "very thoughtful basis." speaks volumes as to what he thinks about Apples competitors in AI, which is basically Apple is taking it's time, being thoughtful whereas the competitors are rushing out their AI thus not being thoughtful.

 

[BellSystem]

At least Siri doesn’t make up where it got it’s information from. It also doesn’t make up answers and when you call it out apologize for doing so. The potential of ChatGPT and it’s ability to understand context is impressive. But it’s got a long long way to go. All this hype around it is just that…hype. Its ability to code is impressive but not at all perfect. It can go off the rails really fast. I think most people impressed by its coding ability have no idea what it’s generating. It’s impressive to none tech people but it’s not this super advanced AI that’s going to take over the world. I think Apple has plenty of time to expand its “AI” offerings before they are behind.

 

[Bodhitree]

Well, I can see Cook’s point. A lot of Apple’s approach is about quality and reliability, and LLM generative chat AI is not yet reliable or always high-quality. I think it will take some time for AI to reach Apple’s standards, but the question is, will they be able to keep up with the field without putting products out there.

 

[3304614]

The same rules that China imposed on on Google’s search engine will apply to chat bots there too.

Google doesn’t have a search engine in mainland China. Google shutdown its China-version search engine all the way back in 2010. Google specifically pulled out of China because Google wasn’t willing to follow China‘s rules about content censorship.

(I say “mainland China“ because Google does have its search engine in Hong Kong.)

 

[steve09090]

No, you've misread it because he did say it


You do no use the word 'thoughtful' in this context unless you are trying to convey a message to others. You also need to bare in mind another MR thread on the topic of Apple's AI and how it is floundering when compared to it's competitors.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/microsoft-planning-privacy-focused-version-of-chatgpt-as-apple-ai-efforts-flounder.2388428/

Therefore Tim Cook is going to know about Apple's floundering efforts into AI and thus speaking about AI saying that Apple is weaving AI into it's products on a "very thoughtful basis." speaks volumes as to what he thinks about Apples competitors in AI, which is basically Apple is taking it's time, being thoughtful whereas the competitors are rushing out their AI thus not being thoughtful.

Firstly, that sentence actually makes no sense. But what I think you are saying is that you have formed the opinion that Cook is saying others aren’t as thoughtful as Apple. However, you have created a few assumptions that are not supported by facts, and only from a biased view that you may have. End of…. No point going in with this because you clearly have one view as 'thoughtful' as it may be, and I have a view based on what Cook actually said, not what I thought he meant.

Edit: Your link actually adds nothing otyer than Microsoft have allegedly decided to have a privacy focus, and they say Apple's stance of keeping privacy is keeping it from progressing. In hindsight, it does actually show that Apple are more thoughtful, but that is not what Cook said in his recent comments, despite what you may have imagined. Don't assume.

 

[laptech]

Firstly, that sentence actually makes no sense. But what I think you are saying is that you have formed the opinion that Cook is saying others aren’t as thoughtful as Apple. However, you have created a few assumptions that are not supported by facts, and only from a biased view that you may have. End of…. No point going in with this because you clearly have one view as 'thoughtful' as it may be, and I have a view based on what Cook actually said, not what I thought he meant.

Edit: Your link actually adds nothing otyer than Microsoft have allegedly decided to have a privacy focus, and they say Apple's stance of keeping privacy is keeping it from progressing. In hindsight, it does actually show that Apple are more thoughtful, but that is not what Cook said in his recent comments, despite what you may have imagined. Don't assume.

The sentence makes a lot of sense. You just chose not to see sense because of your desire to protect Apple.

Apple's AI is floundering, failing depending on who you talk to and it's competitors are running away with it and out comes Tim Cook in an interview about AI saying 'Apple will continue to weave artificial intelligence into its products on a "very thoughtful basis."'. There was absolutely no need for him to say that. It would have been perfectly fine for him to say 'Apple will continue to weave artificial intelligence into its products.' but he didn't, he had to add that extra bit. Why? because he wanted to send a message to it's competitors, Apple is 'thoughtful', you are not.

 

[BEUVK]

Apple is not Microsoft or Google or Amazon. Microsoft is cloud. Because cloud is falling, Microsoft has to find the next big thing, Windows is not making money. Therefore, AI is Microsoft next big thing. It has to do it or Microsoft will fall. Google is search engine and is still the primary search engine in the world. Google is ok. Amazon is online shopping. It also has primary position in logistics and no one can replace it. Amazon is ok. Apple is not depending on AI. Apple primary business is iPhone. It has over a billion users. Users will replace iPhone every few years and Apple business is guaranteed. Apple does not need AI. What Apple is more afraid of is shut down of Chinese supply chain. That means Apple can no longer sell iPhone. Apple problem is supply chain, not AI. Google, Amazon, Apple do not need AI, Microsoft needs AI.

 

[MysticCow]

Imagine if AI starts coding

You do realize that’s where it is literally heading and “STEM at all costs” education will be going down the road of “everyone needs college,” right?

Literally, we need to do more problem solving and arts (which can force you to think differently) and not so much “STEM at all costs.”

 

[steve09090]

The sentence makes a lot of sense. You just chose not to see sense because of your desire to protect Apple.

Apple's AI is floundering, failing depending on who you talk to and it's competitors are running away with it and out comes Tim Cook in an interview about AI saying 'Apple will continue to weave artificial intelligence into its products on a "very thoughtful basis."'. There was absolutely no need for him to say that. It would have been perfectly fine for him to say 'Apple will continue to weave artificial intelligence into its products.' but he didn't, he had to add that extra bit. Why? because he wanted to send a message to it's competitors, Apple is 'thoughtful', you are not.

If Apple is floundering, like you just said with zero facts, then why are their devices that include AI as part of their very rich feature set, doing so well?

You might think it was a veiled comment, but clearly you don't know, and who really cares?

 

[Zest28]

So can you explain what it is about Apple’s processor optimisation AI and Neural Engine that makes it “really trash”?

Do you even own an Apple product? Just try Siri for 1 minute and it's a complete joke. It's really a stretch to even classify the Apple HomePod as a "smartspeaker" as Siri can't do much.

Also Apple their AI for photography has been beaten by competitors too now.

 

[MindYourMind]

This season of South Park has a great episode about ChatGPT and ChatGPT even wrote part of the episode.

A lot of science fiction imagines a future where humans are (often) willingly ruled by AI. Most recently, Raised by Wolves on HBO imagined a world where an AI manages all of the humans in the colony, assigns daily duties, and no one questions it. I think this is where we're headed. AI will make things easy. It'll write our college essays for us, or, as the South Park boys learn, texts to our girlfriends. It won't be long before we're wanting it to make life decisions for us. I'm also concerned about the loss of our humanity. I don't think AI will take it from us. I think we'll give it away.

Man is not intelligent enough to be stupid. And AI is not intelligent enough to be artificially intelligent. Hence, AI is also not intelligent enough to take our humanity away, and humans are not intelligent enough to give their humanity away.

The way I see it, AI only re-arranges the known. And yes it already does it impressively. But it will never create something new, tho it may seem it can. To put it differently, AI will never be able to become genius, like for example Mozart or Leonardo da Vinci. Tho a true genius uses the known, with it s/he creates something which nobody ever has done before - that’s human intelligence, not artificial intelligence which can only repeat the known.

I see no difference between AI and the human mind. To me, AI is a reflection of the human mind and it can do what the human mind can do too, but only better, complexer, faster etc. Hence AI impresses many of us easily just as someone would do who can see things visually that the rest of us can only see using a microscope or a telescope. But AI does not have the potential to become truly creative because it does not have a soul.

While AI is soulless, human beings are souls. And awareness -not to be confused with knowing!- is a reflection of the soul which in turn is an individualized divine spark of life itself. Though AI does not have a soul, it may pretend it has! Hence, pretending is what humans at a certain point of evolution tend to do too. And like man’s mind, AI too is mechanical, BUT because man is a soul, s/he has the potential to evolve to become a truly de-mechanized being. Prior to that and due to only knowing his or her mind while not yet being aware of life, it may seem that s/he falls prey to his or her mechanized mind which s/he mistakenly takes to be life. But that’s not forever because for man, the evolutionary process of life has included the potential to express true creativeness, each of us uniquely. True genius of ingenuity is God’s gift to man and is and will always remain only man’s prerogative.

 

[steve09090]

Do you even own an Apple product? Just try Siri for 1 minute and it's a complete joke. It's really a stretch to even classify the Apple HomePod as a "smartspeaker" as Siri can't do much.

Also Apple their AI for photography has been beaten by competitors too now.

Conversely, who else has fall detection, ECG in a watch?

With regard to AI for photography, are you referring to Samsung where they swap out your own image with one in the database? 😂

 

[MindYourMind]

Another market Apple has lost.

Some losses turn out to be gains. Lets wait and see.

 

[MichaelAdam]

Well, at least you had the good sense to ask!

Here’s a simple example: charging the Apple Watch. The watch learns how you use it so that it can adjust the charging speed to preserve the lifetime of the battery. My watch is fully charged by 6am, which is roughly the time I get up.

Apple also uses AI in the camera to enhance pictures of, say, the moon.

Samsung does this in a slightly different way; when you take a picture of the moon, it replaces it with parts of it with better pictures of the moon that you didn’t actually take.

Thank you for this … I was aware of all those algorithms but I was not aware this to be considered as AI.

 

[bluecoast]

Yes, Cook is right and Apple is usually purposely not first to the table with any new tech paradigm.

How it’s also the case that Siri and ‘Siri intelligence’ are pretty useless.

And I’m not convinced that they have a behind the scenes AI project anywhere ready to supercharge Siri either.

I mean they could’ve - you imagine that they could’ve built a limited LLM that runs on your phone - and sometimes ‘phones’ home to Apple for assistance - which focuses on basic consumer ‘life stuff’ focussing on Apple apps and a few select third party apps and web sites/ services before opening things up more.

However, at Apple, I think AI means ML and it’s mostly to do with photo and video imaging processing and recognition - which is all excellent & has obviously also been preparatory work for the forthcoming AVR/VR project.

They’re obviously very behind regarding the general AI revolution that’s happening.

They have the money. But will they be able to get the people? Or will they end up needing to licence out a more productised version of ChatGPT.

Whatever the case, I think that they need to kill Siri as a brand, as it’s just become a punchline to a joke.

 

[crsh1976]

Problem here is that Timmy will just throw around the expected buzzwords for business reasons (and not sound like they have missed the bus), Apple absolutely sucks at AI and ML for lack of vision and putting resources into it.

 

[Steve121178]

Very interesting... and absolutely terrifying.

I use chatGBT and it is very interesting... and useful. But the potential for computers to replace humans, for teens and college students to have AI write, or at least write most of, their essays, for creativity to being and end with "Hey ChatGBT, write me a funny story about ..." is terrifying.

Personally, I think the world is better than that but as machine learning gets better, and AI really can write movie scripts, television scripts, create beautiful imagery, etc. I am concerned about the loss of... well our humanity.

'Terrifying' is such an overused word. So what if students cheat? They will only end up cheating themselves when they get in the real world and end up getting fired for being incompetent as they chose not to learn at school/college/university.

The drop in education standards over the last 15 years has been massive anyway, so I have no idea what they are teaching kids anymore, but clearly somethings is very fundamentally wrong. ChatGPT is the least of the worries people should have.

As always. personal accountability has to come into it.

 

[laptech]

If Apple is floundering, like you just said with zero facts, then why are their devices that include AI as part of their very rich feature set, doing so well?

You might think it was a veiled comment, but clearly you don't know, and who really cares?

Obviously you never bothered to read earlier into the thread because if you had you would have seen my post where I quoted an MR news article on the topic of Apple's AI floundering. If you need specific facts then I would suggest you contact the MR editing team because it is them who wrote the article about Apples AI floundering.

 

[wanha]

The New York Times in March reported that excitement surrounding chatbots demonstrates how Siri and other traditional voice assistants have "squandered their lead in the A.I. race," as Siri's functionality remains far more limited than chatbots despite launching over a decade ago.

Since when is Siri considered AI?!

Every single thing in Siri is manually curated by writers, which is why it is unable to answer any question outside the norm.

 

[steve09090]

Obviously you never bothered to read earlier into the thread because if you had you would have seen my post where I quoted an MR news article on the topic of Apple's AI floundering. If you need specific facts then I would suggest you contact the MR editing team because it is them who wrote the article about Apples AI floundering.

I already mentioned that lame Microsoft post. It said nothing about foundering. Microsoft said that apple are hampered because they keep privacy locally; whereas Microsoft use the power of the web which inherently defies privacy even though Microsoft are trying to make it so. Did YOU read your link? Lol! Or even my reply? Posted 3 hours ago?

Since when is Siri considered AI?!

Every single thing in Siri is manually curated by writers, which is why it is unable to answer any question outside the norm.

I think someone mentioned it more as Machine Learning, but it’s great for people who want to give all of their privacy away something to complain about.

 

[crsh1976]

If Apple is floundering, like you just said with zero facts, then why are their devices that include AI as part of their very rich feature set, doing so well?

You might think it was a veiled comment, but clearly you don't know, and who really cares?

What are those Apple products that include AI that are doing so well again?

 

[nt5672]

I believe Apple will be very late to the AI game but once it fully commits, the product will be superb.

And which Apple apps that currently exist, lead you to that amazing conclusion? You know, Apple Apps that are outstanding in their class. I really can't think of any. Now, there may be Apps, that do to limited personal usage of a small set of functionality, seem to work fine, but that is not best in class. That is merely getting by with some popular functionality.

 

[Waxhead138]

"Very interesting." How insightful. The man heads a Fortune 10 company and can't say anything bold or visionary? Very interesting indeed....

Yes.....Tim's public vocabulary, when discussing anything new, in or outside of Apple, is quite thin. He is either "Very Excited" ....occasionally "Extremely Excited" to introduce a product, or finds things very interesting. What a bore.

Tim isn't the only one. Corporate America in general is about as entertaining as stereo instructions. It is possible to go off script and still be professional.....

 

[TechnoMonk]

We are currently in the Gartner Hype tunnel of anything called "AI".

ChatGPT and Bard are nothing but a complex decision tree applications with access to the worlds data (real or fake). They are Applied AI and not General AI. It has been easily shown that once you break that decision tree you can punk them into saying some crazy horrible things....hence the 5 question limits until they put bigger bumper guards around it. General AI is at least 30 years away...if ever.

It is so easy to poison the data sources they use to control the output. It is a HUGE mistake that use them for anything serious or especially political. The potential for them to be used in bad ways almost outweigh their potential good.

Just like all of those "Smart" speakers of past (Siri, Alexa, Cortona, Hey Google) after the hype this so called AI will pan out and do some good things in very specific ways and lots of bad things...driven by bad people.

Apple is wise to wait for the lives lost and destroyed by this first wave of AI to get in the game.

Already we have seen ChatGPT make up stuff and accuse a real person of doing some horrible stuff.

ChatGPT invented a sexual harassment scandal and named a real law prof as the accused

ChatGPT accused a law professor of harassment. But the evidence doesn’t exist.

www.washingtonpost.com

Bard on 60min, when answering the question about how to control inflation by a CBS reporter, recommend reading 5 books on the subject.....all of them completely fake.

Well said. ChatGPT and Bard aren’t decision tree based, basically evolution of transformer and unsupervised learning.

 

[TechnoMonk]

windows + gpt, office + gpt, android + bard….those applications are going to blow Apple away and they don’t have plan against it. Apple is like blackberry in the 2000 denying what it’s obvious.

Sure they blow away in hallucination, unless you are looking for basic text of some paraphrasing of high school papers.