Apple is lagging behind Big Tech competitors in radical new AI innovations, even though its software and devices are now filled with little AI-driven features that improve the user experience in small but meaningful ways. A new report in The Information discusses the difficulties Apple is facing to keep up with AI features and innovation amid the rise of large language models (LLMs) that drive ground breaking tools like ChatGPT. The article focuses on the efforts of John Giannandrea, Apple’s AI chief since 2018, to bring order to a fragmented AI group and make Apple more competitive with companies like Google, from which Giannandrea defected.
The Information’s sources offer up numerous examples of senior Apple leadership putting the brakes on (or at least reining in) aggressive efforts within the company’s AI group for fear of seeing products like Siri present the same kinds of embarrassing factual errors or unhinged behavior that ChatGPT and its ilk have done. In other words, Apple isn’t keen on tolerating what many working in AI research and product development call “hallucinations.” Apple has been comparatively conservative, seeking to use AI and machine learning as a tool to improve the user experience, not to truly reinvent how much of anything is done or disrupt existing industries.
Further, Apple has increasingly focused on running AI and machine learning features on users’ local devices, both because that enabled faster response times and because of the company’s public commitment to user privacy. The Information’s sources say that Apple’s engineers have already begun work on some major LLM-driven features, and that the company hopes to introduce them in an iOS update next year.
However, some people believe that the rapid development of ChatGPT and its ilk and Microsoft’s gung-ho approach with Bing Chat could prove reckless, with enormous, potentially negative unforeseen consequences. Apple’s conservative streak might be the right move in the long run—at least when it comes to minimizing externalities. Apple has sometimes found its biggest successes in picking up the leftover pieces after other, more ambitious innovators crashed, burned, and took others with them.
The Information makes one particularly compelling argument: Apple’s brain drain could ultimately be the company’s undoing as it seeks to compete with Google, Microsoft, and others. Apple’s conservative philosophy, along with the explosive innovation in this particular space, might be different from the markets where Apple has used its usual strategy.
Apple has focused almost exclusively on practical applications in features for the iPhone, using machine learning to improve palm detection on the iPad, give iPhone users more neat photo editing tricks, and improve suggestions in Apple’s content-oriented apps, among other similar things. That’s a different tack than the ambitious, blue sky experimentation and innovation you see at companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, or Google. In fact, The Information’s sources reveal that the team that has been working on Apple’s long-in-development mixed reality headset was so frustrated with Siri that it considered developing a completely separate, alternative voice control method for the headset.
While Apple is lagging behind Big Tech competitors in radical new AI innovations, commentators are right to question whether Apple can compete when its approach has historically been so conservative. It’s understandable that ambitious AI developers want to work in an environment that is comparatively unshackled by bureaucracy and restrictions. Right now, Apple is thriving relative to most of its competitors, but new developments in AI could threaten its position in the long run. It will be fascinating to see what Apple does with the new LLM features hinted at in The Information’s report—will it compromise its commitment to virtually no errors, or will it continue to play it safe?