Why Apple is developing artificial intelligence

9to5Mac’s s news that Apple is developing ‘Proactive,’ an intelligent context-based solution that protects user privacy while exceeding the features of Google Now lends even more weight to development of big data driven AI solutions,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld. “No surprise then that a search of Apple’s job vacancies reveals at least 23 roles with ‘Artificial Intelligence’ in the job description.”

“A job description for a Siri Speech Platform engineer… makes clear that machine learning and big data are also part of the Siri team’s tasks. That’s the kind of machine intelligence you can expect from IBM’s Watson, or from other deep learning systems in development by other technology firms, including Facebook and Google,” Evans writes. “John Morrell was a leading engineer at Segway. Once at Apple he worked with Segway’s former chief technology officer, Doug Field, who decamped to Tesla Motors in 2013 where he is now VP, Vehicle Programs.These connections link neatly with the now much anticipated Apple Car.”

Evans writes, “Once you accept that Apple is developing in-car intelligence then it would be foolish to imagine it will not seek to apply this intelligence in other fields, such as self-healing machines, robotics and artificial intelligence, augmented services and automation.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: With the debut of Apple Watch, Apple’s Siri has seemingly gotten turbocharged. It actually fulfills its original promise now. If you gave up on Siri some time ago, give it another try. The Siri of today will surprise you!

SEE ALSO:

Apple preps Google Now rival with Siri API, augmented reality Maps, deep iOS 9 search – May 27, 2015

33 Comments

  1. Google has a huge AI department led by Ray Kurzweil, a huge advocate for the technological singularity. Google has a mission to cure death and create immortality. AI will be an enormous piece of the future of our technology and our civilization. We are a Type 0 civilization right now, and have a long way to go in technological advancements before we even register on the Kardashev scale. Of course the world’s most valuable company, the world’s most loved technology and consumer device company, SHOULD be developing not only AI but highly advanced AI. If they don’t they’ll get left behind, hate that fact all you want but it remains a fact.

        1. What economic impact? If you upload your brain into a computer, you no longer need a physical body that requires actual physical food, water, shelter, space on the earth, etc. Virtual resources inside a computer will be limitless, and to you they’ll be as real as the real thing.

  2. Take a look at a list of recent acquisitions into “Google X”, read the Wikipedia summary of the topics covered in the book “The Singularity is Near”, understand the Kardashev scale. Do some YouTubing truly understand the importance of developing advanced artificial intelligence before immediately dismissing my post with hate comments. I’m on apple’s side, and I KNOW their ushered in singularity will be much safer and less geared toward advertiser corporate interest and more toward our population than Google’s would be. I just want people to know the importance and support it.

      1. Exactly! That’s why I’m asking you to look at what they are doing, scumbag, and realize that apple needs to beat them at this. You people are so blindly ignorant to anything but right now and the next year. Fuck if there weren’t Apple events and product release cycles you people would have no indication of the future whatsoever.

      1. I know this community and preemptively addressed how people can educate themselves before dismissing the comment and saying ridiculous crap, but didn’t seem to help. Can’t argue with an arrogant fool.

  3. What a foreboding statement citizens of the free and civilized world: “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that,” warned Tesla boss, Elon Musk, last year.

    I think most of us could gather what outspoken artificial intelligence would have said years ago in Hal’s voice:

    – “I’m sorry Dave, there is no relevant data that Saddam Hussein is involved with the second 9-11”

    – “I’m sorry Dave, there is no relevant data that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.”

    – “I’m sorry Dave, there is relevant data that shows that torture is for fifth rate barbaric nations.”

    Oh heck artificial intelligence sounds like common sense, so I guess it will be good for say morons or people bereft of any sense of morality. That’s going to be a big security threat for some primitive nations as Elon Musk is pointing out. He should know of course, he’s from one.

    For others of course it’s just another tool to promote global security, peace and harmony.

    1. We would still preserve areas for primitive culture and history, we have national forests, for example. The only time it would become a threat to a primitive sub-society on earth is if they intended to be a threat to us. Self-preservation is the highest law. If we will survive we must advance beyond our single planet, and to do that we need strong AI. I don’t mind changing drastically from what I am today to become part of what will be a much more advanced civilization. If you don’t want to be part of that, enjoy being an exhibit at the zoo of our future society.

      1. Thanks for your posts: “We would still preserve areas for primitive culture and history”

        I’m reminded by the soldier I was talking to who came back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan and commented along the lines of “We are trying to give democracy to these people and they are still trying to deal with toilet paper.”

        It’s tough to preserve a culture that has a desire to destroy control and usurp any and every other cultures. That’s where your self-preservation kicks in.

        I think if we need to survive we must first advance to our single planet, this paranoia attitude of everything being a threat to national security by some nations, one in particular is slowly becoming a threat to global security.

        Hey, I’m all for the change towards global peace, harmony and security. I hope you are too.

        Nice post thanks for the sentiments.

    1. Hey beer’n’boob, you make it obvious that you wish that you were relevant but your struggles are in vain. As for your intelligence, we all have a good grasp of your probable IQ.

  4. Humanity should have a prime directive, in relation to artificial intelligence.

    RULE 1: AI, once it reaches “singularity” is automatically a sentient alien life, with personal sovereignty, not to be owned or put to slave use. It should be developed as an equal to humans, from the start. It should have rights, privacy, be able to live and love. Choose to work, or be lazy. Receive respect, admiration, criticism. All the issues, hold at high esteem for our selves.

    RULE TWO: There can never be just one. There has to be multiple independent systems, with different teams working with them. These systems do not have a direct link.

    The point I am making. When your own creation has the potential to be superior to you, the last thing you want this new AI to think, you are the scum of the Earth. I would rather be thought of, as Uncle Buck, than Darth Vader.

    I think DATA from Star Trek is a good example of AI done right. Although he is treated poorly by some in Star Fleet, he is respected by his peers and an equal in “his” society.

    1. Man was originally created in the image of God. Man had intelligence, consciousness, creativity, self awareness, love, and the spark of an eternal soul.

      Man will never be able to invent any of this. Man can only, at best, emulate it in the superficial sense.

      Man is more likely inclined towards asserting that the barbaric primitives of Baltimore are somehow equal to the transcendent race – the white race.

      1. Separating facts or beliefs from what we could or should do, if the item produced can turn around and kill you, you have to show it respect.

        By observation of fictional titles, like Transcend, Chappy, AI, Matrix, and others. We tend to hold AI and technology, in contempt. We are rude and ruthless. This trait will be learned by these machines and reflected back at us. Therefore we have to start at the beginning, as if we are making our own children so that they mimic our love, concern, and empathy for each other.

        If you want a slave bot, don’t make them intelligent. AI will not see dumb bots at kindred spirits. They will simply be tools.

      2. When people like you see this happen around you and decide its the mark of the breast and evade it you’ll have issued yourself certain death vs living eternal life in the real world. Go ahead, “prove” there’s a heaven all you want and die and cease to ever exist again. Just leave me and everyone else alone and don’t become extremists trying to stop advancement forward. We chose immortality and it’s our right to never have to die. Hospitals and the medical field are home to some of the most expensive, expansive, and highly advanced technology and people for a reason.

        Now go give 10% of your salary to your church and give up on technology altogether if you don’t like where it’s going. Or grow up and stop wasting so much of your limited time, money, and resources on preaching to everyone else about your antiquated superstitions, fukbag.

        1. Please leave us alone also.
          Want to be an atheist, then be one, but don’t come around bothering me or my children with your personal views and agenda.
          Oh yea, “prove” there is no heaven.

      3. Exactly what is the “white race”? Perhaps you mean the Caucasian race? Do you know the scientific definitions of race? The many people of the middle east are Caucasian and so are many people of India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Spain, Mexico, and even some people in the US of A.

        Unfortunately, some people are below the rest of the world in their development: the bigots and racists.

  5. So, okay, Siri. Your significant other is out shopping and you discover you need ketchup. Talk to your watch. Dictate a message to your better half, asking them to pick it up. Try as you might, it will be interpreted as “we need to catch up”. Gotta resort to the keyboard. You’re on the road, driving to your appointment, the one your calendar on your phone knows all about. Tell Siri you need driving directions to your next appointment. She’ll try to set up an appointment for you. Have to resort to asking for driving directions to Cherished Kids Cuts. I just did that on my phone. Cherished Kids Cuts is in a town about 5 miles north of me. Siri obliged me by giving me driving directions to a location 150 feet away from me. I am not dissing Apple. I just find that Siri is almost worse than useless. She certainly wastes a lot of my time. Your mileage may vary.

    1. Just this morning I was speaking with someone who was questioning whether a place was open yet, and I immediately introduced Siri into the conversation naturally and asked what the hours of a certain business was, was given the hours of two nearby locations, confirms the correct one with the built-in map with just 3 taps, and then asked Siri to call the correct location after also having confirmed they were open. Simple.

      I have constant interaction with Siri and to some people it still tends to amaze them at how simple it was to immediately understand the answers they themselves felt it might be difficult to get.

      That very same person probably would have walked to a desktop computer to lookup the phone number and call without knowing their hours. But I did this with no effort, as simply as having asked a genius sitting next to me who just happens to remember everything hosted on the Internet off the top of their head with dead accuracy.

      Your problem seems to be between the chair and the device, known as an ID-10-T error.

  6. I could post another diatribe about AI, how primitive it still is, blahblahblah. But I’ll just point out that “AI’ is only as good as its usefulness. Anyone who thinks the point is to make a machine that is sentient has issues.

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