Apple Launches Its AI Era

I’ve enjoyed learning about the new stuff Apple plans to release over the next year. There’s just a lot to take in. The biggest thing, of course, is Apple’s use of AI — must follow the tech trend I guess. I’ll share some thoughts on this, but note my stance on AI in general is not favorable.

Apple calls its AI, “Apple Intelligence.” Of course!

The marketing targets three specific areas that Apple AI will affect: text, images, and Siri. I’ll start with my least liked.

Images

Leave image creation/generation to humans. Thanks.

Seriously, image creation mostly seems like a gimmick. Apple’s example images don’t look very good to me; I dislike the art-style of AI generated images. 

That said, one good use-case for AI and images, I think, will be identifying photos and their content to search for specific pictures in a huge Photos library. This could be a great help.

As for Genmoji, Apple’s automatic mash-up and generation of custom emoji, seems like it could be fun at first. But in the end, I think it’d be better to stick with the standard emoji accessible to all devices everywhere, regardless of platform or company. You know, because standards.

Text

This is the Big One to me.

As a writer/blogger/journaler, wow, there’s one thing Apple showed with its AI that I’m really eager for: Proofread. That’s it.

Basically, give me Apple’s version of Grammarly built-in, system-wide. Thank you!

Siri

She It might actually get smart, or smarter, or smart enough?

I think Apple showed real improvements to Siri, such as contextual (semantic?) awareness. BUT, how much Siri is truly improved in real-world situations — not controlled and rehearsed demos — remains to be experienced. We’ll see. I have doubts; my hopes are not up.

In general, though, I don’t think talking to my devices with a virtual assistant provides that much utility in the first place. I’m certainly not going to start computing by voice. Is the Future of Computing Siri? No. At least now you’ll be able to Type to Siri, not just Talk to Siri. Cool.

As for Siri’s integrated ChatGPT, I’m glad it’s opt-in because I don’t want it. I distrust OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.

Overall

I really like Apple’s approach to AI with its ability to make it personal. Apple Intelligence “knows” what’s on my Apple devices, so the help I might get directly affects my day-to-day tasks. Nice. And Apple keeps all this private, which is fantastic.

But there’s a little sticky thing with all this Apple AI. For me, I’ll be able to use it on my M1 iPad Air 5 and my M1 MacBook Air. Great. But I won’t be able to use it on the computer always in my pocket because it’s not a new-enough iPhone. As I understand it, all this AI requires the A17 Pro chip or better. My iPhone 12 mini’s A14 chip can’t Proofread my text? Really??

I WILL NOT upgrade my phone just for AI features.

So there’s some of my thoughts on Apple Intelligence. Overall, I don’t think AI is really necessary, but a few things like image search and text proofreading may be helpful. AI can be a useful tool, but I don’t think it’s the “future of computing.”

A current thought simmering in the back of my mind: if AI threatens the integrity of the internet or our digital lifestyle, then I would revert more to analog tools that feature only Natural Intelligence — my own. Limited though my brain is, in the end, low-tech tools might be the smartest or safest option.