Apple needs serious help with search, but I don't think it involves AI. Google's search was far superior to Apple's before I'd ever even heard of AI (in any serious way). Heck, they should just go visit the FileMaker offices. It had better search back in the early 2000s.
And, they'd be running away from self-driving vehicles if they were smart (both literally, and figuratively).
Do not hold your breath, yet... That may be a consultant-type job as well, “reporting directly to TC...”
I don’t think a consultant to Cook would warrant a memo to Apple employees. But I think it will be telling if he’s given an SVP position or just VP like Lisa Jackson. SVP would mean Apple is really serious about building out a world class AI/ML organization. Just an example, Apple currently has around 200 open positions with Siri in the job title. Know how many Amazon has for Alexa? Over 1,000. Maybe this new Campus Cook has talked about will be an AL/ML campus and Apple will ramp up hiring in that space. I don’t think there’s really a secrecy issue there where those employees would need to be in Cupertino.
Take a look at a Machine Learning textbook. You’ll see that there is nothing “intelligent” there, just a bunch of math. AI/ML does not require an “organization”, this is just a topic in SW engineering. Those who sell their company usually pass some time in the buyer company then leave because of boredom and lack of job. All the previous work of that guy being already bought by Google I wonder what new will he bring to Apple.
On the other hand there is a different version of that story:
“Google veteran Jeff Dean takes over as company’s AI chief” - The Verge
"Our technology must be infused with the values we all hold dear," Cook said in an email to staff members obtained by The New York Timeson Tuesday afternoon. "John shares our commitment to privacy and our thoughtful approach as we make computers even smarter and more personal."
If John really shared Apple's commitment to privacy, his days at Google were numbered anyway!
Thank you 8 pound 6 ounce baby jesus! Can't wait till siri gets better. Siri is still just so so terrible. Also can't wait to stop hearing the pathetic excuse that the only reason siri sucks is because of privacy. This is fantastic news. Thank you Tim.
Fingers still crossed that Apple makes a bid for IBM or comes to some kind of exclusive licensing arrangement with IBM for Watson.
IBM has a $140B market cap. Even if things continue going down, Apple would be crazy to try to integrate a company of that size and culture. And IBM would never do an exclusive licencing agreement for the product that they are betting the farm on. If anything, they could white label Watson for Apple but honestly, I think you might be over estimating it as an assistant and Apple would want to own it anyway.
Do not hold your breath, yet... That may be a consultant-type job as well, “reporting directly to TC...”
I don’t think a consultant to Cook would warrant a memo to Apple employees. But I think it will be telling if he’s given an SVP position or just VP like Lisa Jackson. SVP would mean Apple is really serious about building out a world class AI/ML organization. Just an example, Apple currently has around 200 open positions with Siri in the job title. Know how many Amazon has for Alexa? Over 1,000. Maybe this new Campus Cook has talked about will be an AL/ML campus and Apple will ramp up hiring in that space. I don’t think there’s really a secrecy issue there where those employees would need to be in Cupertino.
Throwing a thousand people at a software problem doesn't always solve it better. Frankly I'd be happy for now purely with more accurate dictation. If the dictation engine doesn't understand me it doesn't matter how powerful at so called AI might be.
Do not hold your breath, yet... That may be a consultant-type job as well, “reporting directly to TC...”
I don’t think a consultant to Cook would warrant a memo to Apple employees. But I think it will be telling if he’s given an SVP position or just VP like Lisa Jackson. SVP would mean Apple is really serious about building out a world class AI/ML organization. Just an example, Apple currently has around 200 open positions with Siri in the job title. Know how many Amazon has for Alexa? Over 1,000. Maybe this new Campus Cook has talked about will be an AL/ML campus and Apple will ramp up hiring in that space. I don’t think there’s really a secrecy issue there where those employees would need to be in Cupertino.
Take a look at a Machine Learning textbook. You’ll see that there is nothing “intelligent” there, just a bunch of math. AI/ML does not require an “organization”, this is just a topic in SW engineering. Those who sell their company usually pass some time in the buyer company then leave because of boredom and lack of job. All the previous work of that guy being already bought by Google I wonder what new will he bring to Apple.
On the other hand there is a different version of that story:
“Google veteran Jeff Dean takes over as company’s AI chief” - The Verge
Excellent! Both on the hire and the recognition of organizational chart prominence. In not too many years, AI will be a differentiator and a bigger factor in stickiness. And in more mundane terms, broader intelligence means less time humans spend on hassles like managing backups, updates, finding the best plan for them, and ensuring follow through. Yes, AI is hardly at a point where I’d choose a phone based on its agent. And some things like the ease of error-free texting or dictating will become generic. But maybe within this guy’s tenure, we get the early version of a trusted general purpose 24/7 assistant? Maybe one that becomes as unique as the individual it serves.
Another way to see these upcoming agents: private smart search and e-commerce for billions of users.
Do not hold your breath, yet... That may be a consultant-type job as well, “reporting directly to TC...”
I don’t think a consultant to Cook would warrant a memo to Apple employees. But I think it will be telling if he’s given an SVP position or just VP like Lisa Jackson. SVP would mean Apple is really serious about building out a world class AI/ML organization. Just an example, Apple currently has around 200 open positions with Siri in the job title. Know how many Amazon has for Alexa? Over 1,000. Maybe this new Campus Cook has talked about will be an AL/ML campus and Apple will ramp up hiring in that space. I don’t think there’s really a secrecy issue there where those employees would need to be in Cupertino.
Take a look at a Machine Learning textbook. You’ll see that there is nothing “intelligent” there, just a bunch of math. AI/ML does not require an “organization”, this is just a topic in SW engineering. Those who sell their company usually pass some time in the buyer company then leave because of boredom and lack of job. All the previous work of that guy being already bought by Google I wonder what new will he bring to Apple.
On the other hand there is a different version of that story:
“Google veteran Jeff Dean takes over as company’s AI chief” - The Verge
The same urban legend as always: Google has the biggest data collection Apple has none bla bla bla...
Unstructured information junk is not data valuable for AI/ML. Data must be structured, formatted, cleaned up to be fed into the AI/ML. And such data is not free. Apple will always pay for that data (as in the Maps), Google won't and will crawl in billions of users' browser trash.
Thank you 8 pound 6 ounce baby jesus! Can't wait till siri gets better. Siri is still just so so terrible. Also can't wait to stop hearing the pathetic excuse that the only reason siri sucks is because of privacy. This is fantastic news. Thank you Tim.
My first, week-old grandson was 8 lb, 6 oz at birth and they named him Jesus... (kidding, Theodore actually but there was almost a gig in it).
I would love Apple to ditch the "hey Siri". I'm not a fan of "hey" anyway. Personalise the initiate command, for example - "HAL, open the Nestle pod door please". A little processing on-device and voila.
Thank you 8 pound 6 ounce baby jesus! Can't wait till siri gets better. Siri is still just so so terrible. Also can't wait to stop hearing the pathetic excuse that the only reason siri sucks is because of privacy. This is fantastic news. Thank you Tim.
Siri don’t suck because of privacy.
The reason I heard was it’s because it works based on Natural Language processing. The competition uses basic speech recognition and a lookup function. hopefully this new hire can appreciate the harder work that went into making Siri and can find a way to set her free!
but I do wonder why Siri can’t also have similar lookup functions (and better speech recognition!). Don’t know enough about the subject to understand why it can or cannot.
Excellent! Both on the hire and the recognition of organizational chart prominence. In not too many years, AI will be a differentiator and a bigger factor in stickiness. And in more mundane terms, broader intelligence means less time humans spend on hassles like managing backups, updates, finding the best plan for them, and ensuring follow through. Yes, AI is hardly at a point where I’d choose a phone based on its agent. And some things like the ease of error-free texting or dictating will become generic. But maybe within this guy’s tenure, we get the early version of a trusted general purpose 24/7 assistant? Maybe one that becomes as unique as the individual it serves.
Depends on whether the problem with AI is quantitative or qualitative. IMO, it's mostly the latter.
macplusplus said: The same urban legend as always: Google has the biggest data collection Apple has none bla bla bla...
Unstructured information junk is not data valuable for AI/ML. Data must be structured, formatted, cleaned up to be fed into the AI/ML. And such data is not free. Apple will always pay for that data (as in the Maps), Google won't and will crawl in billions of users' browser trash.
Except that Apple doesn't even have down the pre-AI technology yet, so I'm not sure what good more data would do.
Thank you 8 pound 6 ounce baby jesus! Can't wait till siri gets better. Siri is still just so so terrible. Also can't wait to stop hearing the pathetic excuse that the only reason siri sucks is because of privacy. This is fantastic news. Thank you Tim.
Siri don’t suck because of privacy.
The reason I heard was it’s because it works based on Natural Language processing. The competition uses basic speech recognition and a lookup function. hopefully this new hire can appreciate the harder work that went into making Siri and can find a way to set her free!
but I do wonder why Siri can’t also have similar lookup functions (and better speech recognition!). Don’t know enough about the subject to understand why it can or cannot.
Yes, I'd agree based on experience. While Siri is sometimes clumsy at actually recognizing what I've asked for, where the wheels fall off is in what happens next. Even when what I asked gets 100% accurate interpretation, Siri often fails to return anything relevant, or even be able to do anything helpful by design. For example, I've long complained that I can't do simple stuff while driving like play a playlist, answer a phone call, etc.
Or, lookups of things often fall back to returning a page of search results which require the screen (defeating the whole point of Siri in the first place).
Or, simple things like word-order often confuse Siri, requiring the human to learn the exact syntax Siri requires for a particular command.
And, as I've said, try typing search terms into the App Store, iTunes, Podcasts or even Spotlight, to see just how awful Apple's search routines are. That has nothing to do with AI or privacy... all the data is right there available to it.
I mean, as I said above... once Siri gets some basic functionality down, THEN we can start worrying about how privacy is impacting the outcome. Privacy concerns might limit Siri at some point, once basic functionality is accomplished, I agree. But, it's just an excuse at this point.
The reason I heard was it’s because it works based on Natural Language processing. The competition uses basic speech recognition and a lookup function. hopefully this new hire can appreciate the harder work that went into making Siri and can find a way to set her free!
but I do wonder why Siri can’t also have similar lookup functions (and better speech recognition!). Don’t know enough about the subject to understand why it can or cannot.
I wasn't aware of this distinction. This explains why sometimes I'll ask Siri for directions to [some restaurant] and she'll completely mess it up or send me to some similar-sounding place 500 miles away; however, I open Maps, tap the mic on the KB and dictate the name and it's perfectly accurate. I always found it frustrating as hell that the allegedly smarter one tries to get too clever and ultimately misinterprets what I was saying.
barthrh said: I wasn't aware of this distinction. This explains why sometimes I'll ask Siri for directions to [some restaurant] and she'll completely mess it up or send me to some similar-sounding place 500 miles away; however, I open Maps, tap the mic on the KB and dictate the name and it's perfectly accurate. I always found it frustrating as hell that the allegedly smarter one tries to get too clever and ultimately misinterprets what I was saying.
That's our AI future, I fear. It's just lipstick on the dancing paperclip.
Comments
Heck, they should just go visit the FileMaker offices. It had better search back in the early 2000s.
And, they'd be running away from self-driving vehicles if they were smart (both literally, and figuratively).
Take a look at a Machine Learning textbook. You’ll see that there is nothing “intelligent” there, just a bunch of math. AI/ML does not require an “organization”, this is just a topic in SW engineering. Those who sell their company usually pass some time in the buyer company then leave because of boredom and lack of job. All the previous work of that guy being already bought by Google I wonder what new will he bring to Apple.
On the other hand there is a different version of that story:
“Google veteran Jeff Dean takes over as company’s AI chief” - The Verge
https://apple.news/ARGo0MONUTkSlQC01NJaIyg
That's probably the conversation that happened between John and Google - except for the "Nope" part!
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/3/17195076/google-ai-chief-john-giannandrea-joining-apple-machine-learning-siri
Excellent! Both on the hire and the recognition of organizational chart prominence. In not too many years, AI will be a differentiator and a bigger factor in stickiness. And in more mundane terms, broader intelligence means less time humans spend on hassles like managing backups, updates, finding the best plan for them, and ensuring follow through. Yes, AI is hardly at a point where I’d choose a phone based on its agent. And some things like the ease of error-free texting or dictating will become generic. But maybe within this guy’s tenure, we get the early version of a trusted general purpose 24/7 assistant? Maybe one that becomes as unique as the individual it serves.
Another way to see these upcoming agents: private smart search and e-commerce for billions of users.
Unstructured information junk is not data valuable for AI/ML. Data must be structured, formatted, cleaned up to be fed into the AI/ML. And such data is not free. Apple will always pay for that data (as in the Maps), Google won't and will crawl in billions of users' browser trash.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html
I suspect there will be walkouts or masses of employees quitting if this continues.
The reason I heard was it’s because it works based on Natural Language processing. The competition uses basic speech recognition and a lookup function.
hopefully this new hire can appreciate the harder work that went into making Siri and can find a way to set her free!
but I do wonder why Siri can’t also have similar lookup functions (and better speech recognition!). Don’t know enough about the subject to understand why it can or cannot.
Except that Apple doesn't even have down the pre-AI technology yet, so I'm not sure what good more data would do.
Nothing new, read up a bit on Schmidt for some really scary stuff. The ties are deep.
Yes, I'd agree based on experience. While Siri is sometimes clumsy at actually recognizing what I've asked for, where the wheels fall off is in what happens next. Even when what I asked gets 100% accurate interpretation, Siri often fails to return anything relevant, or even be able to do anything helpful by design. For example, I've long complained that I can't do simple stuff while driving like play a playlist, answer a phone call, etc.
Or, lookups of things often fall back to returning a page of search results which require the screen (defeating the whole point of Siri in the first place).
Or, simple things like word-order often confuse Siri, requiring the human to learn the exact syntax Siri requires for a particular command.
And, as I've said, try typing search terms into the App Store, iTunes, Podcasts or even Spotlight, to see just how awful Apple's search routines are. That has nothing to do with AI or privacy... all the data is right there available to it.
I mean, as I said above... once Siri gets some basic functionality down, THEN we can start worrying about how privacy is impacting the outcome.
Privacy concerns might limit Siri at some point, once basic functionality is accomplished, I agree. But, it's just an excuse at this point.