4 ms·

I just looked into ~/Library/Trial on my main machine (macOS 12.2.1). I got 380MB spread over 584 files (while TFA's author got 300k???). Most if not all of the

by oefrha 5y ago

I just looked into ~/Library/Trial on my main machine (macOS 12.2.1). I got 380MB spread over 584 files (while TFA's author got 300k???). Most if not all of them are related to com.apple.siri.asr.dictation.en_US. Close to 100% of the space is taken up by .fst files, e.g. $ file /path/to/msg-bigG.squeezed_quantized_acceptor.fst /path/to/msg-bigG.squeezed_quantized_acceptor.fst: OpenFst binary FST data, fst type: squeezed_quantized_acceptor, arc type: standard, version: 3, num states: 1237632, num arcs: 7376910 Appears be data files for OpenFST[1], "a library for constructing, combining, optimizing, and searching weighted finite-state transducers". I don't do ML so I stopped there. [1] https://www.openfst.org/twiki/bin/view/FST/WebHome https://www.openfst.org/twiki/bin/view/FST/WebHome

lathiat 5y ago
I have a big directory here too (100s of thousands of files) however I am enrolled in the beta program. Perhaps the super large versions of the directory is only for the beta program but the non beta participates have the small version.
- kergonath 5y ago
  It could also well be the daemon not cleaning up after itself properly in some obscure circumstances. These things happen way too often.
BluSyn 5y ago
I checked mine, and I see lots of mention of "Siri" (TEXT TO SPEECH, FIND MY, etc). Seems most likely this is A/B testing for ML models, such as those for Siri and Photos analysis? That's my best guess. Since Siri and Photos now processes more locally (especially on M1's dedicated ML cores), all the training improvements and testing probably happen locally as well. It makes sense it would regularly download updates for ML models. I'm more curious about what data gets uploaded back to Apple...
- londons_explore 5y ago
  I think apple is pretty invested in distributed ML training. Ie. your PC will go through your photo gallery/siri audio data, and use the labels and stuff to fine-tune an apple-provided ML model. The fine-tunings are then re-uploaded to apple, added up, and distributed to other users in the next update. The privacy implications of this are dubious. There is as-yet no good research showing how these finetuned models can be used to reveal exactly what photos you have in your photo library, but many experts believe that won't be the case for long.
  - secondcoming 5y ago
    > The privacy implications of this are dubious. Really? Apple can essentially be asked by Law Enforcement for answers to questions like "Give me all the IMEIs of people in location X, radius 10 miles, that appear to have pictures of cats"
    - londons_explore 5y ago
      The model fine tunings can't immediately be used to say "this person has pictures of cats". They effectively are just a big diff of the ML weights. It's a big set of floating point numbers which is hard to get any meaning out of. But experts believe that techniques might be developed in the future to figure out based on the numbers what data must have been in the training set (and hence your photos). Nobodies managed to do that yet.
      - mhitza 5y ago
        No experience with NN, just basic understanding of these things. If you train a model A) cats, one for B) dogs and one for C) dogs and cats. Is there any research which asks if you can do a network subtraction C-B = D, and get a sensible network D than can loosely do what A does?
        londons_explore 5y ago
Hamuko 5y ago
I get "56 961 719 bytes (567,5 MB on disk) for 147 851 items" on my work laptop, which is definitely not enrolled in any kind of beta programs, and "56 157 910 bytes (566,4 MB on disk) for 147 806 items" on my home computer, which I unboxed yesterday.
klohto 5y ago
Macbook Pro M1 Pro, 12.3, Siri completely disabled as most of the daemons (the ones that are possible) and I also have ~333MB across 303k files.
- ziml77 5y ago
  MBP M1, 12.2, Siri enabled (though I haven't actually used it) > du -hs ~/Library/Trial 2.6M /Users/___/Library/Trial > find ~/Library/Trial | wc -l 160
  - clairity 5y ago
    i have siri off and my numbers are 16 and 2.2M (16" intel MBP, 11.4). fwiw, all of my triald's (outgoing) connections are blocked via lulu, but i don't think that makes a difference here. for folks with siri on and extra bloat, i'd guess they could reduce it some by turning off "Show Siri Suggestions in App" and "Learn from this App" for each app in the "Siri Suggestions & Privacy" section of siri's system prefs (for the apps they don't care about having siri integration).

by oefrha 5y ago

lathiat 5y ago

I have a big directory here too (100s of thousands of files) however I am enrolled in the beta program. Perhaps the super large versions of the directory is only for the beta program but the non beta participates have the small version.

kergonath 5y ago
It could also well be the daemon not cleaning up after itself properly in some obscure circumstances. These things happen way too often.

BluSyn 5y ago

I checked mine, and I see lots of mention of "Siri" (TEXT TO SPEECH, FIND MY, etc). Seems most likely this is A/B testing for ML models, such as those for Siri and Photos analysis? That's my best guess. Since Siri and Photos now processes more locally (especially on M1's dedicated ML cores), all the training improvements and testing probably happen locally as well. It makes sense it would regularly download updates for ML models. I'm more curious about what data gets uploaded back to Apple...

londons_explore 5y ago
I think apple is pretty invested in distributed ML training. Ie. your PC will go through your photo gallery/siri audio data, and use the labels and stuff to fine-tune an apple-provided ML model. The fine-tunings are then re-uploaded to apple, added up, and distributed to other users in the next update. The privacy implications of this are dubious. There is as-yet no good research showing how these finetuned models can be used to reveal exactly what photos you have in your photo library, but many experts believe that won't be the case for long.
- secondcoming 5y ago
  > The privacy implications of this are dubious. Really? Apple can essentially be asked by Law Enforcement for answers to questions like "Give me all the IMEIs of people in location X, radius 10 miles, that appear to have pictures of cats"
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    The model fine tunings can't immediately be used to say "this person has pictures of cats". They effectively are just a big diff of the ML weights. It's a big set of floating point numbers which is hard to get any meaning out of. But experts believe that techniques might be developed in the future to figure out based on the numbers what data must have been in the training set (and hence your photos). Nobodies managed to do that yet.
    - mhitza 5y ago
      No experience with NN, just basic understanding of these things. If you train a model A) cats, one for B) dogs and one for C) dogs and cats. Is there any research which asks if you can do a network subtraction C-B = D, and get a sensible network D than can loosely do what A does?
      - londons_explore 5y ago

Hamuko 5y ago

I get "56 961 719 bytes (567,5 MB on disk) for 147 851 items" on my work laptop, which is definitely not enrolled in any kind of beta programs, and "56 157 910 bytes (566,4 MB on disk) for 147 806 items" on my home computer, which I unboxed yesterday.

klohto 5y ago

Macbook Pro M1 Pro, 12.3, Siri completely disabled as most of the daemons (the ones that are possible) and I also have ~333MB across 303k files.

ziml77 5y ago
MBP M1, 12.2, Siri enabled (though I haven't actually used it) > du -hs ~/Library/Trial 2.6M /Users/___/Library/Trial > find ~/Library/Trial | wc -l 160
- clairity 5y ago
  i have siri off and my numbers are 16 and 2.2M (16" intel MBP, 11.4). fwiw, all of my triald's (outgoing) connections are blocked via lulu, but i don't think that makes a difference here. for folks with siri on and extra bloat, i'd guess they could reduce it some by turning off "Show Siri Suggestions in App" and "Learn from this App" for each app in the "Siri Suggestions & Privacy" section of siri's system prefs (for the apps they don't care about having siri integration).