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I don't know who is in a worse position. Apple has the problem of a possible trade war. Google on the other hand is going to be regulated with GDPR and whatever

I don't know who is in a worse position. Apple has the problem of a possible trade war. Google on the other hand is going to be regulated with GDPR and whatever the current administration will have to pass due to Facebook. I think I am leaning toward Google having a worse situation due to this move.

gman83 9y ago
I think Apple is so many years behind Google in AI that they have little hope of catching up. Their bet will be that consumers are privacy-focused enough to not mind the fact that their products have less AI-focused advancements (e.g. Google Photos). At the end of the day, the only way AI systems currently train themselves is if a lot of users share their data, like Google-users do. Apple provides more of a firewall, but handicaps potential AI systems from using training data in doing so. Also Google has massive mindshare in the AI community with TensorFlow.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > I think Apple is so many years behind Google in AI that they have little hope of catching up. That’s been used to describe every dominant technology company at some point, most of which have been supplanted by now (or else supplanted a company which was previously described in similar terms). Maybe this time it’s true—and Apple certainly has their work cut out for them—but history implies that it’s probably not. Maybe it won’t be Apple, but it’ll probably be somebody.
  - gman83 9y ago
    "I think Microsoft is so many years behind Google in search that they have little hope of catching up" I can think of more examples. I agree, and Microsoft is a good example, that a paradigm shift can totally change the playing field. A desktop software oriented company like Microsoft couldn't or wouldn't take their dominance into an internet oriented market. However Google has managed to transition to mobile and demonstrated they can manage such changes. From what I've seen of fuchsia they're thinking ahead again.
    - yoklov 9y ago
      I'm not sure MS vs Google in search is a good example, since by and large many people still have the impression that Bing isn't very good. Last time I used it, this was the case. I don't know if it's changed, I'd be willing to believe either way.
      - Baeocystin 9y ago
        Bing's general search still lags Google's, but its image search is miles ahead. IMO.
        smallhands 9y ago
        +1 for bing image search is incredible
- majormajor 9y ago
  I use both Google Photos and Apple Photos and honestly, most of the "suggestions" from Google Photos are uncompelling. When I switched back to iOS a few months ago, I didn't find anything keeping me from moving primarily to Apple's solution. The most impressive automatic-photos-adjustment thing I've seen is in Lightroom now - and Adobe wouldn't be my first guess for AI leader. I find this to be a general trend with Google: they may have more advanced AI, but haven't yet figured out super-useful ways to apply it. They also are perfectly willing to undercut their own AI to serve business goals: the Assistant on my Pixel wouldn't even let me do "hey google set a timer for five minutes" if I didn't give Google my full location history. Because you need that to set timers...
  - jsemrau 9y ago
    You should try Adobe's iPad apps. They use AI enhancements very wisely throughout this ecosystem.
  - richforrester 9y ago
    Some logic (be it faulty or not) brought me to wonder; isn't Google's lead in AI a direct result of sitting on figuratively all the data in the world? That must account for a huge portion of their advances, right?
    - andy_ppp 9y ago
      Yes, the most data and the best AI people together means Google is always miles ahead IMO.
    - Jyaif 9y ago
      Their advance is because they have two geeks at the helm that have been dreaming to have AI to respond to search queries since pretty much the beginning of the company.
  - kcorbitt 9y ago
    For me, the killer ML use case in Google Photos is object recognition. For example, I took a picture of my driver's license a year or so ago, and needed the number on a form recently. I just went to Google Photos and searched for "driver's license." Sure enough, the old picture showed up, even though I never manually tagged it.
- LeanderK 9y ago
  I don't think this is true. I do specialize in ML and you are probably talking about neural networks ("deep learning"). While they do require a lot of data for most tasks, it's still finite and after a certain size the improvements are not significant anymore (the definition of significant is up to you..). I don't know what Apple is working on, but i think for most of the ML-applications they are interested in, getting the training data is not that hard (like suggestions on the photos-app or autocorrect). It's still apple. If I remember correctly, sharing analytics info etc. with apple is opt-in? If 1% of the users share the relevant data (or you've got money for annotating data in asia/africa, like tesla), this might enable you to solve most of your problems. this does not mean that the quality of apples solutions is the same as googles, i just doubt it's the training data. Google is A LOT (not even comparable) more visible in the ML-community and i bet they have better and more researchers.
- Osmium 9y ago
  > I think Apple is so many years behind Google in AI that they have little hope of catching up. We are so early on in the AI revolution, it seems very premature to make this claim. I would wager we can't even imagine the scope of the kind of data we'd have available in the coming decades, let alone how the latest AI tech will use it, or which company will lead the way with its application.
- microtherion 9y ago
  Not disagreeing with you that Google has advantages in some areas. However, Apple has some advantages as well, especially in its hardware/software integration in end user devices, which allows it to deploy e.g. hardware neural network acceleration or specific sensors, as in the iPhone X.
- brisance 9y ago
  Is your background in AI/machine learning? Because it is a very common trope that is rolled out and I strongly disagree with it. There isn’t such a thing as an insurmountable lead.
- SuoDuanDao 9y ago
  Given the public desire to make AI largely open source - which Apple could easily bankroll and gain goodwill while doing it - I'd say the odds of catching up are fairly good. Not necessarily over 50%, but probably better than it would look from counting patents.
Apocryphon 9y ago
And Amazon has a personal presidential vendetta against them...
- brisance 9y ago
  Don't think it's a vendetta. More of him playing to his voter base. The man has no scruples and would sell his mother twice if he could.
  - jldugger 9y ago
    Yes, but what about Trump?
    - abc_lisper 9y ago
      Found the redditor!
trevyn 9y ago
I think Apple and Google are their own worst enemies. Neither is lead by a founder who cares, which matters a lot.
- zealsham 9y ago
  Did you read the article or you just skimed through it.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  > Neither is lead by a founder who cares [Citation needed]
jtmcmc 9y ago
GDPR still is an opt-out mechanism. Though work for google I don't think it will fundamentally affect them that much...
- phn 9y ago
  Could you elaborate on GDPR being opt-out? The main point I keep reading about seems to be unambiguous separate consent for every use you use any piece of data for. (on mobile, but I’ll come back with references if needed)
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Consent is one basis for collection. “Legitimate interest” is another. You need consent when you don’t have a strong enough argument under legitimate interest or another lawful basis. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
    - phn 9y ago
      Thank you for the keywords, that actually makes some sense. I guess the crux of the question is in ambiguous terms like "personal freedoms", etc. that the regulation says should be weighted against "Legitimate Interest" of whoever collects data.
    - wastedhours 9y ago
      IANAL either, but my research confirms this also. A lot of companies up to now have used opt-out as their skewed version of consent. GDPR raises that barrier much higher, however, some of those use cases of "older style consent" may very well fall into legitimate interests or performance of a contract. One of the main things about GDPR though is getting companies to give a monkeys about the rationale for the data collection - even if they use the legitimate interests argument, part of it is that they now have to actively prepare for that, show the legitimate interest and rationalise it to regulators.
closeparen 9y ago
Google has effectively been GDPR compliant or close to it for years. Takeout, view and edit your ads profile, industry-leading internal controls on production data access, etc. They’re a first party, not a data broker, so will have an easier time with “legitimate interest” arguments. They also helped develop the law. GDPR is not a big deal for Google. It’s a big deal for similar organizations that have to suddenly catch up to Google’s security and privacy posture.
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago
  I mostly agree with you, but the penalties for non-compliance are so staggeringly large, the requirements are so vague, and the EU's love of fining American tech companies is so great that Id' be awfully nervous about GDPR if I were a large American tech company.
  - paulie_a 9y ago
    < Id' be awfully nervous about GDPR if I were a large American tech company. They should be and that is a great thing.
    - pjschlic 9y ago
      Yours is not a unique sentiment, but I find it so disheartening. Vague laws enforced selectively are bad for the rule of law. Is the schadenfreude from sticking it to whatever American company is selected worth that?
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        No, it's just that American companies as a rule tend to have a dim view of privacy and some pushback against that is welcome. As for enforcement, if you're a European company you have much more to be worried about since it is going to be much easier to go after you. Selective enforcement is hopefully going to be limited to going after a couple of very prominent offenders after which the remainder will fall in line.
      - 9y ago
debt 9y ago
AI itself is so far behind than most people realize. Most AI-branded products do an extremely small subset of tasks. I argue that it isn't AI rather using arcane statistical methods to hopefully ascertain the human requirement for the context. AI doesn't yet exist anywhere that I know of. Hiring an AI guy is symbolic move used to signal to investors that they're making moves in a certain space.
- Baeocystin 9y ago
  >that it isn't AI rather using arcane statistical methods to hopefully ascertain the human requirement for the context One of the big problems the field of AI has in terms of marketing itself is that is soon as a problem is understood and put in to use, people no longer see it as 'AI'. It's the god of the gaps, so to speak. But that does not render the actual advances not-AI. It is a perceptual problem, not a real impediment.
RestlessMind 9y ago
Among all the data-dependent tech companies, I believe Google is one of the best situated to comply with GDPR. Mainly because they have lots of cash to tackle regulations in terms of resources and manpower. Also, Google has revenue streams (Cloud, Play store, non-personalized Search ads) which are not as user-data dependent as some others (eg. FB, startups with ads-based business model).
bri3d 9y ago
Google's big problem is straight antitrust, followed by that they're an adtech revenue engine locked in a multi-front war against companies who sell real products. Their GDPR story is actually pretty good and their transition away from adtech revenue seems to be progressing well too.
1024core 9y ago
And why won't GDPR affect Apple?
nevir 9y ago
On the flip side, JG is an awesome hire for any company
jacksmith21006 9y ago
Do not think Google mhas anything to worry about. They can just tie ads to the content instead of the person. Plus search does not require other data as ads are associated with what you are searching.

gman83 9y ago

I think Apple is so many years behind Google in AI that they have little hope of catching up. Their bet will be that consumers are privacy-focused enough to not mind the fact that their products have less AI-focused advancements (e.g. Google Photos). At the end of the day, the only way AI systems currently train themselves is if a lot of users share their data, like Google-users do. Apple provides more of a firewall, but handicaps potential AI systems from using training data in doing so. Also Google has massive mindshare in the AI community with TensorFlow.

mcphage 9y ago
> I think Apple is so many years behind Google in AI that they have little hope of catching up. That’s been used to describe every dominant technology company at some point, most of which have been supplanted by now (or else supplanted a company which was previously described in similar terms). Maybe this time it’s true—and Apple certainly has their work cut out for them—but history implies that it’s probably not. Maybe it won’t be Apple, but it’ll probably be somebody.
- gman83 9y ago
  "I think Microsoft is so many years behind Google in search that they have little hope of catching up" I can think of more examples. I agree, and Microsoft is a good example, that a paradigm shift can totally change the playing field. A desktop software oriented company like Microsoft couldn't or wouldn't take their dominance into an internet oriented market. However Google has managed to transition to mobile and demonstrated they can manage such changes. From what I've seen of fuchsia they're thinking ahead again.
  - yoklov 9y ago
    I'm not sure MS vs Google in search is a good example, since by and large many people still have the impression that Bing isn't very good. Last time I used it, this was the case. I don't know if it's changed, I'd be willing to believe either way.
    - Baeocystin 9y ago
      Bing's general search still lags Google's, but its image search is miles ahead. IMO.
      - smallhands 9y ago
        +1 for bing image search is incredible
majormajor 9y ago
I use both Google Photos and Apple Photos and honestly, most of the "suggestions" from Google Photos are uncompelling. When I switched back to iOS a few months ago, I didn't find anything keeping me from moving primarily to Apple's solution. The most impressive automatic-photos-adjustment thing I've seen is in Lightroom now - and Adobe wouldn't be my first guess for AI leader. I find this to be a general trend with Google: they may have more advanced AI, but haven't yet figured out super-useful ways to apply it. They also are perfectly willing to undercut their own AI to serve business goals: the Assistant on my Pixel wouldn't even let me do "hey google set a timer for five minutes" if I didn't give Google my full location history. Because you need that to set timers...
- jsemrau 9y ago
  You should try Adobe's iPad apps. They use AI enhancements very wisely throughout this ecosystem.
- richforrester 9y ago
  Some logic (be it faulty or not) brought me to wonder; isn't Google's lead in AI a direct result of sitting on figuratively all the data in the world? That must account for a huge portion of their advances, right?
  - andy_ppp 9y ago
    Yes, the most data and the best AI people together means Google is always miles ahead IMO.
  - Jyaif 9y ago
    Their advance is because they have two geeks at the helm that have been dreaming to have AI to respond to search queries since pretty much the beginning of the company.
- kcorbitt 9y ago
  For me, the killer ML use case in Google Photos is object recognition. For example, I took a picture of my driver's license a year or so ago, and needed the number on a form recently. I just went to Google Photos and searched for "driver's license." Sure enough, the old picture showed up, even though I never manually tagged it.
LeanderK 9y ago
I don't think this is true. I do specialize in ML and you are probably talking about neural networks ("deep learning"). While they do require a lot of data for most tasks, it's still finite and after a certain size the improvements are not significant anymore (the definition of significant is up to you..). I don't know what Apple is working on, but i think for most of the ML-applications they are interested in, getting the training data is not that hard (like suggestions on the photos-app or autocorrect). It's still apple. If I remember correctly, sharing analytics info etc. with apple is opt-in? If 1% of the users share the relevant data (or you've got money for annotating data in asia/africa, like tesla), this might enable you to solve most of your problems. this does not mean that the quality of apples solutions is the same as googles, i just doubt it's the training data. Google is A LOT (not even comparable) more visible in the ML-community and i bet they have better and more researchers.
Osmium 9y ago
> I think Apple is so many years behind Google in AI that they have little hope of catching up. We are so early on in the AI revolution, it seems very premature to make this claim. I would wager we can't even imagine the scope of the kind of data we'd have available in the coming decades, let alone how the latest AI tech will use it, or which company will lead the way with its application.
microtherion 9y ago
Not disagreeing with you that Google has advantages in some areas. However, Apple has some advantages as well, especially in its hardware/software integration in end user devices, which allows it to deploy e.g. hardware neural network acceleration or specific sensors, as in the iPhone X.
brisance 9y ago
Is your background in AI/machine learning? Because it is a very common trope that is rolled out and I strongly disagree with it. There isn’t such a thing as an insurmountable lead.
SuoDuanDao 9y ago
Given the public desire to make AI largely open source - which Apple could easily bankroll and gain goodwill while doing it - I'd say the odds of catching up are fairly good. Not necessarily over 50%, but probably better than it would look from counting patents.

Apocryphon 9y ago

And Amazon has a personal presidential vendetta against them...

brisance 9y ago
Don't think it's a vendetta. More of him playing to his voter base. The man has no scruples and would sell his mother twice if he could.
- jldugger 9y ago
  Yes, but what about Trump?
  - abc_lisper 9y ago
    Found the redditor!

trevyn 9y ago

I think Apple and Google are their own worst enemies. Neither is lead by a founder who cares, which matters a lot.

zealsham 9y ago
Did you read the article or you just skimed through it.
saagarjha 9y ago
> Neither is lead by a founder who cares [Citation needed]

jtmcmc 9y ago

GDPR still is an opt-out mechanism. Though work for google I don't think it will fundamentally affect them that much...

phn 9y ago
Could you elaborate on GDPR being opt-out? The main point I keep reading about seems to be unambiguous separate consent for every use you use any piece of data for. (on mobile, but I’ll come back with references if needed)
- closeparen 9y ago
  Consent is one basis for collection. “Legitimate interest” is another. You need consent when you don’t have a strong enough argument under legitimate interest or another lawful basis. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
  - phn 9y ago
    Thank you for the keywords, that actually makes some sense. I guess the crux of the question is in ambiguous terms like "personal freedoms", etc. that the regulation says should be weighted against "Legitimate Interest" of whoever collects data.
  - wastedhours 9y ago
    IANAL either, but my research confirms this also. A lot of companies up to now have used opt-out as their skewed version of consent. GDPR raises that barrier much higher, however, some of those use cases of "older style consent" may very well fall into legitimate interests or performance of a contract. One of the main things about GDPR though is getting companies to give a monkeys about the rationale for the data collection - even if they use the legitimate interests argument, part of it is that they now have to actively prepare for that, show the legitimate interest and rationalise it to regulators.

closeparen 9y ago

Google has effectively been GDPR compliant or close to it for years. Takeout, view and edit your ads profile, industry-leading internal controls on production data access, etc. They’re a first party, not a data broker, so will have an easier time with “legitimate interest” arguments. They also helped develop the law. GDPR is not a big deal for Google. It’s a big deal for similar organizations that have to suddenly catch up to Google’s security and privacy posture.

CobrastanJorji 9y ago
I mostly agree with you, but the penalties for non-compliance are so staggeringly large, the requirements are so vague, and the EU's love of fining American tech companies is so great that Id' be awfully nervous about GDPR if I were a large American tech company.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  < Id' be awfully nervous about GDPR if I were a large American tech company. They should be and that is a great thing.
  - pjschlic 9y ago
    Yours is not a unique sentiment, but I find it so disheartening. Vague laws enforced selectively are bad for the rule of law. Is the schadenfreude from sticking it to whatever American company is selected worth that?
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      No, it's just that American companies as a rule tend to have a dim view of privacy and some pushback against that is welcome. As for enforcement, if you're a European company you have much more to be worried about since it is going to be much easier to go after you. Selective enforcement is hopefully going to be limited to going after a couple of very prominent offenders after which the remainder will fall in line.
    - 9y ago

debt 9y ago

AI itself is so far behind than most people realize. Most AI-branded products do an extremely small subset of tasks. I argue that it isn't AI rather using arcane statistical methods to hopefully ascertain the human requirement for the context. AI doesn't yet exist anywhere that I know of. Hiring an AI guy is symbolic move used to signal to investors that they're making moves in a certain space.

Baeocystin 9y ago
>that it isn't AI rather using arcane statistical methods to hopefully ascertain the human requirement for the context One of the big problems the field of AI has in terms of marketing itself is that is soon as a problem is understood and put in to use, people no longer see it as 'AI'. It's the god of the gaps, so to speak. But that does not render the actual advances not-AI. It is a perceptual problem, not a real impediment.

RestlessMind 9y ago

Among all the data-dependent tech companies, I believe Google is one of the best situated to comply with GDPR. Mainly because they have lots of cash to tackle regulations in terms of resources and manpower. Also, Google has revenue streams (Cloud, Play store, non-personalized Search ads) which are not as user-data dependent as some others (eg. FB, startups with ads-based business model).

bri3d 9y ago

Google's big problem is straight antitrust, followed by that they're an adtech revenue engine locked in a multi-front war against companies who sell real products. Their GDPR story is actually pretty good and their transition away from adtech revenue seems to be progressing well too.

1024core 9y ago

And why won't GDPR affect Apple?

nevir 9y ago

On the flip side, JG is an awesome hire for any company

jacksmith21006 9y ago

Do not think Google mhas anything to worry about. They can just tie ads to the content instead of the person. Plus search does not require other data as ads are associated with what you are searching.