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Honestly, it speaks mountains to Apple as an organisation that they did not invest all of their resources into Siri, especially when you consider how Amazon inv
by agentcoops 4y ago
Honestly, it speaks mountains to Apple as an organisation that they did not invest all of their resources into Siri, especially when you consider how Amazon invested in Alexa etc. Everyone has long understood that the "personal assistant" represents really the pinnacle of not just what AI but the personal computer should be able to offer -- the mistake this past decade was thinking that had to do with then current ML paradigms or with these completely useless voice agents. That Apple could realise it was a dead-end and not sink much more investment/engineering resources into the tool any further than what anyone actually uses these tools for (changing song, lowering volume, etc) is outstanding.
Ultimately, I'm very reassured that it's Apple and Microsoft leading the way for personal and business AI assistants respectively. As Stratechery has emphasised, the latter not only already has all the data from most firms outside Silicon Valley, but more importantly has always adhered to and designed their software according to a computer-as-a-tool philosophy versus Google's "ML/AI will do everything for you behind the scenes"; the former has not only made a show of data security but invested massively in the hardware architectures necessary to making on-device AI a possibility. Without at all being a "fanboy", Apple is quite literally the only company I would trust my personal data to for use in a GPT-based assistant.
- mark212 4y agoAmazon's investment in Alexa is a perfect example of why Apple didn't (and shouldn't have) invested all of their resources into Siri. The Alexa team is getting seriously gutted in these rounds of downsizing [1], or as CNBC puts it "the team behind the technology was a prime target of the largest layoffs in the company’s history." What they have been invested heavily in is the Apple Neural Engine ("ANE"), special silicon right on the SoC to handle ML / AI code. Optimize on a server, then run the model on your iPhone or probably soon, your Apple Watch. WWDC this year is going to be very, very important. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/06/amazon-fully-committed-to-alexa-despite-layoffs-hardware-chief-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/06/amazon-fully-committed-to-al...