Apple Intelligence launches with iOS 18.1. Image credit: Apple
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Apple software chief Craig Federighi was asked about Siri and Apple Intelligence, and while he couldn't discuss the future, he was confident that Siri would never become some kind of intelligent friend.
Apple Intelligence will launch with iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1 before the end of October. Rather than succumb to the same hype as its competitors, Apple appears to have taken a more conservative approach, offering users private and secure tools they can use every day.
Apple's senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi sat down with the Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern to discuss Apple's foray into artificial intelligence and how it differentiates itself from its competitors. One example he gave was that Siri already helps users open their garage doors or send text messages, while ChatGPT isn't designed for those use cases.
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Federighi noted, however, that Siri will continue to improve over time, but Apple isn't aiming for an “intelligent friend.” That's in stark contrast to other companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google, which seem convinced they can create consciousness at any time — so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Instead, Apple wants users to get helpful text summaries or use Clean Up to remove objects without fundamentally altering an image. Other companies are happy to generate entire essays or turn a memory into fiction, both of which Apple seems uninterested in doing.
Privacy isn’t an issue for Apple Intelligence, but when Stern asks why other companies aren’t approaching AI this way, Federighi’s answer is simple. Not only are Apple’s on-device and Cloud Compute systems complex to build and implement, the concept runs counter to competitors who want to suck up as much training data as possible.
When asked about the delay in releasing features for Apple Intelligence, Federighi called AI “a big lift” and that “we want to get it right.” As opposed to “shipping something and making a mess of it.”
His answer mirrors that of Apple CEO Tim Cook, who has said that Apple wasn’t the first in AI, but it will be the best.
Apple views Apple Intelligence as a 10-year arc that needs to be implemented responsibly. This arc begins with iOS 18.1 and other operating systems around October 28.
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