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I don't think Apple has advancements in machine learning tech as much as its competitors. For example, take a look at how primitive Siri is. It struggles a lot

by neya 8y ago

I don't think Apple has advancements in machine learning tech as much as its competitors. For example, take a look at how primitive Siri is. It struggles a lot in comparison to its competitors even for some basic commands. Or, take a look at Apple Music's recommendation system in comparison to Spotify's discover weekly. Now, take a look at Amazon and Google. They both have their own cloud infrastructure (which ironically Apple uses) with machine learning built right into it. Both have state of the art image recognition systems (proprietary) for various applications (Eg. Google Image search, Amazon shopping, etc.) I am not saying Apple can't do it, I just think they're lagging behind and this move totally makes sense.

dilyevsky 8y ago
They reason is because they don’t snoop on their users and so don’t have good training sets available. Training set for driving is more readily available.
- naaaaak 8y ago
  Apple originally kept Siri audio for up to 2 years "for testing and product improvement purposes". I am not sure if that is still the case. https://www.wired.com/2013/04/siri-two-years/ https://www.wired.com/2013/04/siri-two-years/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tiew9Vii 8y ago
From what I read Apple are taking a different approach? Google/Amazon are harvesting massive amounts of data and training against it and Apple are taking a privacy first approach saying you shouldn’t have to harvest lots of data for intelligent AI. Currently the harvesting data for models look to be working better for Google / Amazon with current technology. The question is how will Apple progress long term and given time can they achieve AI with some level of privacy. I don’t know enough to have any comments but like Apple’s public stance on this.
- neuronic 8y ago
  Thank you for this comment, long term is rarely even considered in consumer technology related to smartphones or "devices".
- sterlind 8y ago
  Are you suggesting Apple plans to do AI without harvesting data, or with transparent privacy controls on data? There's literally nothing for machine learning to learn besides harvested data. It's like suggesting that a power company is trying the strategy of using no wires for delivering electricity to houses.. I'd be excited if Apple found a way to trustlessly aggregate data and perform homomorphic training of their ML models, but they seem to be laying off that flavor of talent..
  - simonh 8y ago
    It's actually not that Apple isn't collecting data sets, but they're doing so at a more measured pace by thoroughly anonymising it using differential privacy. If the AI needs to use raw personal data in it's calculations, that is done on the user's device to keep that information private. This appears to be slowing them down compared to their competitors, but it's not clear how much as against them being a bit behind for other reasons.
    - mda 8y ago
      Others also anonimyzes data using differential privacy, k anonymity etc. It is a common practice and enforced when working with private / PII data.
  - JimDabell 8y ago
    > There's literally nothing for machine learning to learn besides harvested data. You can obtain training data from sources other than your customers. Apple have employees driving vans around with cameras and LIDAR.
  - mcintyre1994 8y ago
    Is this what their differential privacy stuff is about? It's not trustless (not least because 100% of the data comes from a closed source OS they control) but they do seem to be trying to figure out a privacy-friendly way to harvest data to train ML models.
paxys 8y ago
Apple is far behind its competitors in pretty much every area except hardware. They are still terrible at running stable web services. There is a new critical bug or security hole in their OS every month. And all of their non-hardware offerings - Apple Maps, Apple Music, iCloud, iTunes, Siri etc. - range from very bad to average. IMO they need to be investing a LOT more on the software side of things if they intend to stay competitive, especially since iPhone sales are already drying up.
- nuthje 8y ago
  The major differentiator of Apple hardware is the software that runs on it. iOS and MacOS are basically unmatched by other offerings.
  - collyw 8y ago
    In what meaningful way are they "unmatched"?
    - zapita 8y ago
      Speaking for myself: a combination of ease of use, features, quality and a mature ecosystem. They certainly don't have a perfect track record in any of these, QA being a well-documented example in the last few years. And the alternatives have gotten better, but they're still not good enough to convince me to switch.
    - depr 8y ago
      iPhones have better hardware/software integration, which is easy for Apple to do because they control everything. They get better performance out of their hardware because of this.
- simonh 8y ago
  Sales levelling off != drying up. Apple has always had problems with their online services, but iOS security is a problem? Compared to what, the dumpster fire over in Android?
abalone 8y ago
This is totally unfounded. Their market-leading bokeh camera effect is powered by a “state of the art image recognition system” including custom silicon (the “neural engine”). Siri has gotten a lot better especially at natural language recognition.[1] The HomePod for example is exceptionally good at detecting Hey Siri commands while loud music is playing. That’s all local machine learning processing coupled with a great mic array. It’s more the breadth of services that are the issue, but that’s not machine learning. The music recs.. well you don’t cite anything. I can say the weekly For You new music mix works good for me. [1] https://www.cnet.com/news/siri-vs-alexa-vs-google-assistant/ https://www.cnet.com/news/siri-vs-alexa-vs-google-assistant/
- zuppy 8y ago
  I keep hearing that people noticed Siri getting better, but my experience is totaly different. For example, how can it screw up something as simple as enabling alarms: https://ibb.co/vkYpGcq https://ibb.co/vkYpGcq (this has happened multiple times to me). Why most of the questions are answered with a google search link? Why it keeps randomly forgetting context (example: I tell her to wake me up at 1pm, then repeat just 1:01pm, and so on to add more alarms. Most of the times, it works, but sometimes it stops understanding what I want, even though the speech recognition is right and I’m saying the request in the same format as my previous requests, just with an incremented time). I’m not saying other Apple products can’t use AI, just that Siri seems to be very low on their priority list (and I don’t blame engineering, this is something that comes from management).
  - nagVenkat 8y ago
    I complained a few months ago that Siri had a tough time recognizing my accent heavy speech but these days it is better.
- mrkstu 8y ago
  I'd add that Apple News has had a much better hit rate than Google News. It consistently has added new suggested categories based on my observed preferences.
- 8y ago
ach9l 8y ago
The formal grammar structure behind smart assistants is basically the same. Siri is as primitive as Cortana, Google Now and Alexa, the difference comes in the amount of data the interfaces have access too. Outside of the text to speech and speech to text algorithms, there is barely any machine learning when it comes to understanding what the user says. As of it right now comparing smart assistants is equivalent to comparing dictionaries, Siri having less entries and people writing them than the others.
standerman 8y ago
Apple bought Shazam, and their recommendation system is quite good.
wasdfff 8y ago
There’s a lot of unknowns with liability and regulation. I’d rather let someone else take up that legal risk than spend all this money on basic research just to have my shit shut down by ordinance or a manslaughter charge.

by neya 8y ago

dilyevsky 8y ago

They reason is because they don’t snoop on their users and so don’t have good training sets available. Training set for driving is more readily available.

naaaaak 8y ago
Apple originally kept Siri audio for up to 2 years "for testing and product improvement purposes". I am not sure if that is still the case. https://www.wired.com/2013/04/siri-two-years/ https://www.wired.com/2013/04/siri-two-years/

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tiew9Vii 8y ago

From what I read Apple are taking a different approach? Google/Amazon are harvesting massive amounts of data and training against it and Apple are taking a privacy first approach saying you shouldn’t have to harvest lots of data for intelligent AI. Currently the harvesting data for models look to be working better for Google / Amazon with current technology. The question is how will Apple progress long term and given time can they achieve AI with some level of privacy. I don’t know enough to have any comments but like Apple’s public stance on this.

neuronic 8y ago
Thank you for this comment, long term is rarely even considered in consumer technology related to smartphones or "devices".
sterlind 8y ago
Are you suggesting Apple plans to do AI without harvesting data, or with transparent privacy controls on data? There's literally nothing for machine learning to learn besides harvested data. It's like suggesting that a power company is trying the strategy of using no wires for delivering electricity to houses.. I'd be excited if Apple found a way to trustlessly aggregate data and perform homomorphic training of their ML models, but they seem to be laying off that flavor of talent..
- simonh 8y ago
  It's actually not that Apple isn't collecting data sets, but they're doing so at a more measured pace by thoroughly anonymising it using differential privacy. If the AI needs to use raw personal data in it's calculations, that is done on the user's device to keep that information private. This appears to be slowing them down compared to their competitors, but it's not clear how much as against them being a bit behind for other reasons.
  - mda 8y ago
    Others also anonimyzes data using differential privacy, k anonymity etc. It is a common practice and enforced when working with private / PII data.
- JimDabell 8y ago
  > There's literally nothing for machine learning to learn besides harvested data. You can obtain training data from sources other than your customers. Apple have employees driving vans around with cameras and LIDAR.
- mcintyre1994 8y ago
  Is this what their differential privacy stuff is about? It's not trustless (not least because 100% of the data comes from a closed source OS they control) but they do seem to be trying to figure out a privacy-friendly way to harvest data to train ML models.

paxys 8y ago

Apple is far behind its competitors in pretty much every area except hardware. They are still terrible at running stable web services. There is a new critical bug or security hole in their OS every month. And all of their non-hardware offerings - Apple Maps, Apple Music, iCloud, iTunes, Siri etc. - range from very bad to average. IMO they need to be investing a LOT more on the software side of things if they intend to stay competitive, especially since iPhone sales are already drying up.

nuthje 8y ago
The major differentiator of Apple hardware is the software that runs on it. iOS and MacOS are basically unmatched by other offerings.
- collyw 8y ago
  In what meaningful way are they "unmatched"?
  - zapita 8y ago
    Speaking for myself: a combination of ease of use, features, quality and a mature ecosystem. They certainly don't have a perfect track record in any of these, QA being a well-documented example in the last few years. And the alternatives have gotten better, but they're still not good enough to convince me to switch.
  - depr 8y ago
    iPhones have better hardware/software integration, which is easy for Apple to do because they control everything. They get better performance out of their hardware because of this.
simonh 8y ago
Sales levelling off != drying up. Apple has always had problems with their online services, but iOS security is a problem? Compared to what, the dumpster fire over in Android?

abalone 8y ago

This is totally unfounded. Their market-leading bokeh camera effect is powered by a “state of the art image recognition system” including custom silicon (the “neural engine”). Siri has gotten a lot better especially at natural language recognition.[1] The HomePod for example is exceptionally good at detecting Hey Siri commands while loud music is playing. That’s all local machine learning processing coupled with a great mic array. It’s more the breadth of services that are the issue, but that’s not machine learning. The music recs.. well you don’t cite anything. I can say the weekly For You new music mix works good for me. [1] https://www.cnet.com/news/siri-vs-alexa-vs-google-assistant/ https://www.cnet.com/news/siri-vs-alexa-vs-google-assistant/

zuppy 8y ago
I keep hearing that people noticed Siri getting better, but my experience is totaly different. For example, how can it screw up something as simple as enabling alarms: https://ibb.co/vkYpGcq https://ibb.co/vkYpGcq (this has happened multiple times to me). Why most of the questions are answered with a google search link? Why it keeps randomly forgetting context (example: I tell her to wake me up at 1pm, then repeat just 1:01pm, and so on to add more alarms. Most of the times, it works, but sometimes it stops understanding what I want, even though the speech recognition is right and I’m saying the request in the same format as my previous requests, just with an incremented time). I’m not saying other Apple products can’t use AI, just that Siri seems to be very low on their priority list (and I don’t blame engineering, this is something that comes from management).
- nagVenkat 8y ago
  I complained a few months ago that Siri had a tough time recognizing my accent heavy speech but these days it is better.
mrkstu 8y ago
I'd add that Apple News has had a much better hit rate than Google News. It consistently has added new suggested categories based on my observed preferences.
8y ago

ach9l 8y ago

The formal grammar structure behind smart assistants is basically the same. Siri is as primitive as Cortana, Google Now and Alexa, the difference comes in the amount of data the interfaces have access too. Outside of the text to speech and speech to text algorithms, there is barely any machine learning when it comes to understanding what the user says. As of it right now comparing smart assistants is equivalent to comparing dictionaries, Siri having less entries and people writing them than the others.

standerman 8y ago

Apple bought Shazam, and their recommendation system is quite good.

wasdfff 8y ago

There’s a lot of unknowns with liability and regulation. I’d rather let someone else take up that legal risk than spend all this money on basic research just to have my shit shut down by ordinance or a manslaughter charge.