AAt Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), “Apple Intelligence” was introduced, a set of AI features designed to rework the iPhone experience.
At the core of Apple Intelligence is a light-weight but powerful AI model with three billion parameters.
While that is tiny in comparison with current language models that approach trillions of parameters, Apple's AI model runs directly on the iPhone, enabling private, low-latency data processing.
At the identical time, ChatGPT will perform more complex tasks via Apple’s Surprise partnership with OpenAI.
One of essentially the most outstanding features of Apple Intelligence is the power to rewrite emails and messages and customize responses to the user's individual style and tone.
It may even summarize long group chats and prioritize notifications based on user habits.
These AI systems also serve to enhance Siri, which might now have more natural, contextual conversations and understand requests linked to data on the device.
So, for instance, if someone sends you a song, you could possibly say something like, “Siri, play the song my friend sent me the opposite day.” Or how about, “Siri, tell me concerning the task my boss sent me yesterday.”
The era of “AI devices” has already begun. Google, Samsung and others are working to make various AI features available to everyone.
However, Apple's attempt appears to be penetrating even deeper into the way in which we use our devices and thus our data.
When Apple and OpenAI announced their partnership, Elon Musk was one among the primary to emphasise how OpenAI may benefit from the partnership.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 10, 2024
Apple and OpenAI quickly realized that this was not the case. OpenAI stated: “When accessing ChatGPT inside Siri and Writing Tools, privacy measures are inbuilt – requests will not be stored by OpenAI and users’ IP addresses are obscured.”
Delays within the EU and regulatory concerns
Apple later announced that a minimum of three key AI features as a part of its AI rollout – phone mirroring, improvements to SharePlay screen sharing, and overarching Apple Intelligence – will likely be withheld from users within the European Union until 2025.
The reason for that is concerns concerning the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which goals to advertise fair competition and interoperability between digital platforms.
EssentiallyThe DMA requires major technology firms like Apple to make sure that their products work well with those of their competitors. Apple fears that the compatibility of its AI features with competing platforms could compromise the safety of user data.
Apple published a press release Promise to work with the European Commission to seek out an answer that can enable them to introduce their recent instruments to EU customers without compromising their security.
EU: Fairness or punitiveness?
Apple isn’t the one technology company that has clashed with the EU recently.
Meta recently canceled the launch of Meta AI in Europe after the corporate faced objections from EU regulators and data protection watchdogs over its plan to coach AI models using user data from Facebook and Instagram.
Meta desired to update its terms of service to permit the usage of EU users' social media posts for educational purposes, but this was met with strong criticism.
Meta then backtracked, saying that the corporate wouldn’t use social media posts from the EU to coach its AI models and that, like Apple, it might delay the launch of its recent products.
Meta's statement said: “We would only have the option to supply people a second-class experience. This means we cannot launch Meta AI in Europe right now.”
On the one hand, the EU is set to guard residents and keep the large technology firms in check. On the opposite hand,There are legitimate concerns that the EU’s regulatory zeal could backfire.
Currently, there are signs that it’s way more difficult to bring AI tools to market within the EU, so firms may look to regions with less stringent regulations for higher opportunities.
Does it matter? It is dependent upon your standpoint. At the momentthriving firms like France's mistral strengthen Europe’s voice within the generative AI industry.
It's hard to assume anyone being too unhappy about not having their social media data utilized by Meta or having to attend a couple of months for Apple Intelligence.
In fact, EU customers are already used to technology reaching the continent long after the US, with the one-year-old Apple Vision Pro Release expected later in June.
Nevertheless, the upcoming AI law will pose one other hurdle for technology firms – and things are already looking a bit tricky.
