Apple hints at radically different view of AGI than AI rivals

Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a constant topic of discussion for many AI companies, but it seems Apple has a radically different view than most. Here's what the company just revealed.

Apple's AI Head Is Skeptical of Artificial General Intelligence

Steven Levy recently interviewed several Apple executives about Apple Intelligence. The full article, based on these interviews, is available to WIRED subscribers here.

Much of the discussion retraces familiar territory from other interviews, but there was one particularly interesting quote related to artificial general intelligence. It came from Apple's senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, John Giannandrea.

Levy writes:

Unlike some of its competitors, Apple has not been interested in achieving artificial general intelligence, a quest that seems unrealistic and almost frivolous to the company. “The most respected researchers in this field believe that there are a lot of unsolved problems and breakthroughs needed,” says Giannandrea. “The idea that you scale these technologies to get to AGI is very naive.”

Giannandrea’s skepticism about the ambitions of other AI companies is clear.

While some may point to the ever-improving new LLM models as proof that AGI is just around the corner, Apple seems to think otherwise.

He says Apple could well be involved in important breakthroughs — not to kickstart the Singularity, but to improve its products. “We probably have more engineers working on what we call ‘research’ than we do on what’s going to ship next year,” he says, referring to what appears to be the company’s term for basic research.

In other words, Giannandrea isn’t ruling out Apple’s involvement in AGI-related breakthroughs, but the end goal isn’t AGI, it’s user-centric products that improve people’s lives. And Apple's head of AI thinks some common AI optimism is “very naive.”

9to5Mac's Take

AI optimists might point to Giannandrea's quote as further evidence that Apple is lagging in AI.

They might be right, but I tend to think it's a healthy dose of realism. Apple's primary source of revenue is hardware, so it's understandable that it might be more cynical about AI, while other companies need to hype it up to attract interest and funding.

What do you think of Apple's outlook on AI? Let us know in the comments.