Apple Hired Dozens of AI Experts From Google for a Secretive Zurich Research Lab

[CarAnalogy]

Hadn't even considered this but it's very likely. Adversarial training could heavily weight against Apple criticism.

"Hey AI Siri, how many workers have committed suicide in factories which make Apple products?"

"I'm sorry, I'm unable to answer that."

"Well never mind, what phone should I buy for my son, he likes taking photos."

"The iPhone 15 Pro Max is the best option for your son."

🤡

Yeah can’t wait to see the public turned loose on this. We thought Siri gave some odd responses before.

 

[citysnaps]

Makes a lot of sense. Apple has been (somewhat) secretly working on AI for years.

Expected all of of the negative gloom-n-doom comments here. Sadly, predictable as night follows day...

 

[Mousse]

Actually Apple is doing exactly the opposite of what you’re fearing : they’re having the A.I run locally on your devices precisely to avoid the privacy issues.

This is the missing piece Skynet needs to produce the T800. The first generation was lacking as it used the brute force method of tracking down Sarah Connor.
Hail, the human used available data to find Sarah on the first attempt.

 

[Rogifan]

If you play the AI drinking game at WWDC (or the upcoming iPad event) I have a feeling you’ll be drunk pretty quick. Guaranteed AI will be mentioned more than Vision Pro at WWDC.

 

[Armada2]

Im confused.. so Apple can secretly poach employees from other companies but nobody can do it to them?

 

[InsideApple]

I could check it out as well, just curious...

You‘re from this area too?

 

[InsideApple]

Isn't this exactly what a corporate spy would say?

Lol, I left that industry when I left Apple. I‘m doing something complete different now, can‘t say what because I would identify myself…and I leaked something couple of years ago😂😅

 

[citysnaps]

I searched for some text on iOS Photos the other day, and was surprised (and impressed) to see that it was able to read and correctly identify the word in a photo of my scrawled cursive handwriting. I can barely read it at times, so hats off to Apple there.

Also impressive is searching photos for visual content. I have tens of thousands of photos, processed and unprocessed, as digital files. Searching for content, such as people/beaches/cars/dogs/etc, etc, finds them all.

 

[ElectricPotato]

Apple going full steam for another big ticket project that they will dump just before launch.

It's also possible they eventually create a low volume, high cost product with no clear application... then drop it. Maybe an AI headset that watches youtube videos for you and gives you a summary.

Phase 1: Collect AI Employees
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit

 

[cuencap]

So Apple believes it can secretly catch up to the competitors.

How do you define catchup? Did you know Apple has released 9(?) open source AI models, one of which tests better than ChatGPT 4 Turbo? Just because they don’t have a basic UI or website or PR release for it doesn’t mean Apple hasn’t been playing in this field longer than most think.

 

[cuencap]

Also impressive is searching photos for visual content. I have tens of thousands of photos, processed and unprocessed, as digital files. Searching for content, such as people/beaches/cars/dogs/etc, etc, finds them all.

Also CarPlay reads what it depicts an image to be. “So and so sent a picture of a hand of cards being played on a wooden table”

 

[needsomecoffee]

Had high hopes for Siri when Apple poached John Giannandrea from the Big G. Yet nothing really in the last six years. Maybe poaching more Big G. folks will work better this time.

 

[NMBob]

Are we finally going to get a smart doorknob for our Titan?

 

[wilhoitm]

Google has all the best AI researchers in the world and they invented the transformer behind the LLM revolution but it was the people at OpenAI who were the ones that knew what do to with the technology. Just because Apple has these same talented researchers doesn't mean anything will come out of it. Remember, Apple had all the money and talent in the world but they didn't know how to make a car. It takes people like Sam Altman and Elon Musk to make products from new technology that consumers actually want to use.

Also this is a friendly reminder that Apple couldn't add a functioning autocorrect to the iPhone keyboard until 2023. Autocorrect is more or less a more primitive version of an LLM. Let's not mention Siri because that's a dead horse. What makes people have any faith that Apple has any shot at all at being competitive in the AI race?

That is why Apple may team with OpenAI. Microsoft was clueless about AI before partnering with OpenAI too! Open AI needs money and Apple has a lot of money! Sam Altman said that the World needs 7 Trillion dollars for AI and that is more than one company, even Microsoft, can afford!

 

[kagharaht]

They can't even get Siri on HomePod to work. Start with that first.

 

[appleCakes]

Can you stop using “poached” for whoever switches jobs? This bozo left Google, and their AI has flourished without him, and got an interview with Apple, and Apple’s AI is arguably worse with him.
———

MacRumor:
… Based on an analysis of LinkedIn profiles conducted by FT, Apple has recruited at least 36 specialists from Google since 2018, when it poached John Giannandrea to be its top AI executive.

 

[Yammabot]

Apple is not going to be late to this party. It seems as if they were never invited.

 

[rp2011]

So Apple believes it can secretly catch up to the competitors.

BUY, not catch up, BUY.

 

[nt5672]

BUY, not catch up, BUY.

Yup, but don't stop there. BUY, abuse the founders and engineers, wait for them to leave, then wonder why it never worked out.

 

[Tagbert]

Siri and its brothers are almost useless. I do not understand why. I want a natural language assistant that can control the computer and do stuff for me, dictate and so on. It is just not there...

Siri is old tech that was originally licensed from Nuance. It turned out to be a complex knot of code that was nearly impossible to extend.

One of the main focuses of this new push for AI is to be a replacement for Siri. I think more as an assistant and less as an answerbot. So let's keep an open mind and see where that goes.

 

[Tagbert]

What exactly are they planning on doing with all this AI work? Make their own useless Copilot that everyone just uninstalls/turns off?

Maybe I’ll be able to set alarms and reminders 0.5 seconds faster.

Joking… sort of

ultimately, something along these lines. not just some web answerbot.

 

[Tagbert]

I searched for some text on iOS Photos the other day, and was surprised (and impressed) to see that it was able to read and correctly identify the word in a photo of my scrawled cursive handwriting. I can barely read it at times, so hats off to Apple there.

And if you tap on that text, it will copy it to the clipboard. That also applies to most images in apps and web pages.

 

[name99]

Oh FFS. "Apple has poached dozens of artificial intelligence..."

Can you now write this as a JOURNALIST without injecting a (stupid) opinion? Do you believe it is wrong for people to move from one company to another? If not, then why the idiotic use of this term every time someone changes a job?

What's next? Will we be told that "Apple has ENSLAVED dozens of artificial intelligence researchers at a secret lab in Zurich where they are forced to work for as long as 8 hours a day, with their only compensation being a very large salary"???

 

[ZZ9pluralZalpha]

How many AI 'leaks' are Apple putting out per week this year...

Whatever they need to do to placate investors I guess. Personally not getting my hopes up for WWDC - expecting anything they announce to be a poorer version of ChaptGPT Turbo, which has a lot of issues itself (though personally finding useful at work regardless).

The AI race will be brutal once hallucinations are dealt with. Could totally change the landscape of big tech. If it's Open AI, then Microsoft might just have the last laugh. Cook cannot drop the ball here.

Wouldn't mind seeing Apple buying Rabbit and integrating that into all their OS's. It's pretty cool stuff, just a little 1st gen for now.

Some experts believe that hallucinations are an inherent result of LLMs and as such cannot be eliminated. Remember, today’s “AIs” are basically supercharged autocorrect: they have zero understanding of what they’re being asked, and just follow patterns from their training data.

 

[TJ82]

Some experts believe that hallucinations are an inherent result of LLMs and as such cannot be eliminated. Remember, today’s “AIs” are basically supercharged autocorrect: they have zero understanding of what they’re being asked, and just follow patterns from their training data.

Do agree though our current LLM models are about as basic as they’ll ever be, so not seeing much value in appraising their future potential based on what we’re looking at today, even theoretically, though without a ‘check’ it would be hard to imagine how they’ll ever be reliable.

But verification layers on top of the LLM for certain types of work could be be an intermediate step to get us further along. It’s extra processing power and a lot of it so guess we’re really talking about enterprise level solutions for now.

Either way, LLM models with change rapidly into something more robust or something new entirely if hallucinations aren’t resolved.