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The problem is that in the absence of an LLM-powered "Priority" section this email would have ended up in the main mailbox with the rest of the emails with no s

The problem is that in the absence of an LLM-powered "Priority" section this email would have ended up in the main mailbox with the rest of the emails with no special status, allowing human-level spam filters to kick in as normal and hopefully catch it in most cases. Instead, this "Priority" section now emphasizes that email as important and for a lot of people (though obviously not the author) will disable their natural suspicions. This bug doesn't just return the user to the old status quo, it makes it more likely that they fall to a scam than they were before. This is a beta, but Apple Intelligence can't roll out like this—it has to have a spam filter of its own as a first pass, and there's no way the metadata in this email makes it past an LLM spam filter.

brookst 2y ago
I think it’s fair to say that the entire operating system cannot be released at the quality level in beta 1. CarPlay loses the ability to accept touch inputs, alarms someone go off an hour early, the entire screen fails to wake while tapping sometimes, and many many more fundamental problems. Given the PR sensitivity around AI, Apple should never have included these features until they were much more polished, even in a beta, even if it meant waiting months.
- talldayo 2y ago
  This feels like the whole "Just wait for AGI" argument all over again, with a different audience. There is no promise or rule that suggests Apple will ever be able to fix this feature. By giving even a tiny bit of control to an AI, you're risking the chance that it statistically generates a token you didn't want. That's the random element that will rear it's ugly head at the least-convenient time. If Apple wants to avoid that (and rightfully so), then they shouldn't have tried building with AI in the first place.
  - brookst 2y ago
    What does token generation have to do with a model that prioritizes email?
    - potatoman22 2y ago
      OP is assuming they're using a generative model to prioritize emails. e.g. """classify the priority of this email: {{email}} Output one of the following priorities: LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH""" Obviously there are other ways to rank emails, but I think their larger point about these models being essentially stochastic holds true.

brookst 2y ago

I think it’s fair to say that the entire operating system cannot be released at the quality level in beta 1. CarPlay loses the ability to accept touch inputs, alarms someone go off an hour early, the entire screen fails to wake while tapping sometimes, and many many more fundamental problems. Given the PR sensitivity around AI, Apple should never have included these features until they were much more polished, even in a beta, even if it meant waiting months.

talldayo 2y ago
This feels like the whole "Just wait for AGI" argument all over again, with a different audience. There is no promise or rule that suggests Apple will ever be able to fix this feature. By giving even a tiny bit of control to an AI, you're risking the chance that it statistically generates a token you didn't want. That's the random element that will rear it's ugly head at the least-convenient time. If Apple wants to avoid that (and rightfully so), then they shouldn't have tried building with AI in the first place.
- brookst 2y ago
  What does token generation have to do with a model that prioritizes email?
  - potatoman22 2y ago
    OP is assuming they're using a generative model to prioritize emails. e.g. """classify the priority of this email: {{email}} Output one of the following priorities: LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH""" Obviously there are other ways to rank emails, but I think their larger point about these models being essentially stochastic holds true.