Apple Maintains Silence on Artificial Intelligence Despite Global Trends

Despite widespread expectations, Apple chose not to join the artificial intelligence bandwagon and instead focused on its latest product lineup, which includes the Vision Pro mixed reality headset.

Generative AI has become the biggest buzzword in the tech world ever since Microsoft-backed OpenAI released ChatGPT late last year, which reveals the capabilities of the emerging technology.

ChatGPT opened the world’s eyes to the idea that computers could decode complex, human-level content with simple prompts, giving amateurs the abilities of tech geeks, artists, or speechwriters.

Apple has backed down as Microsoft and Google announced how generative artificial intelligence will revolutionize its products, from web search to word processing and image retouching.

During the recent earnings season, tech execs mentioned AI in every sentence as they wanted to reassure investors that they weren’t missing out on Silicon Valley’s next big chapter.

Apple has chosen to be much more discreet and has never mentioned artificial intelligence, especially in its keynote address at the World Developers Conference in California.

“Apple haunts the generative AI revolution,” said a Wired Magazine headline after the event.

“Not necessarily AI?”

Arguments vary as to why Apple has chosen a more subtle approach.

First, Apple follows other critics who have long been wary of the term “AI,” believing that it is too vague and unhelpfully evokes dystopian nightmares of killer robots and the subjugation of humans to machines.

This is why some companies – including TikTok or Facebook’s Meta – are adopting AI innovations, but not necessarily promoting them as such.

“We integrate it into our products, [but] people don’t necessarily think of it as artificial intelligence,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told ABC News this week.

Artificial intelligence was indeed a big part of Apple’s annual jamboree on Monday, but it took some technical know-how to spot it.

In one instance, Apple’s software manager said that “machine learning on the device” would boost auto-correction of iPhone messages, when he might as well have said artificial intelligence.

Apple’s autocorrect innovation sparked giggles when iPhones no longer correct common expressions.

“For those moments when you just want to type the word ‘duck’, the keyboard will learn it too,” said Craig Federighi.

AutoCorrect also learns about your writing style and helps it guide suggestions using AI technology similar to ChatGPT.

In another example, a new iPhone app called Journal, an interactive diary, would use “machine learning on the device to inspire your writing,” Apple said, but made no reference to AI, though other companies have used it.

Artificial intelligence will also play an important role in the Vision Pro headset when it is released next year, helping to create a user’s digital personality for video conferencing, for example.

“Not much trouble”

For some analysts, not mentioning AI is an admission by Apple that it was losing ground against the competition.

“They haven’t invested much in it,” independent technology analyst Rob Enderle told AFP.

“I think they just felt that AI was heading into the future, and it wasn’t surprising,” he added.

The torrid performance of Siri, Apple’s chatbot launched a decade ago, has also fueled the feeling that the smartphone giant is not getting AI.

“I think most people would agree that Apple lost their edge with Siri. That’s probably the most obvious way they fell behind,” said Yory Wurmser, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence.

But Wurmser also argued that Apple is first and foremost a hardware maker, and that AI, which is software, will always be “a means and not an end to a great user experience” in its premium devices.

In that sense, for Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro headphones was itself an artificial intelligence play, even if it wasn’t explicitly stated that way.

“We still strongly believe this is the first step in a broader Apple strategy to build a generative AI-based app ecosystem” for Vision Pro, he said.