Apple throws its hat into the AI-generated image ring

AppleInsider

Apple, in collaboration with researchers from the University of California, has released its own AI-based image editing model that and anybody can try.

Image generated with Image Creator from Microsoft Designer

The model has been dubbed "MGIE," which stands for MLLM-Guided Image Editing and allows users to edit images based on natural language instructions. It leverages multimodal large language models (MLLMs), which combine various types of information, such as text, photos, and videos, to understand and generate human-like language.

While studies on MLLMs have shown promising results in understanding and generating images, they haven't been implemented widely yet.

MGIE was presented in a paper at the International Conference on Learning Representations 2024. The paper showcases how MGIE can improve automatic metrics and human evaluation while also maintaining competitive inference efficiency.

MGIE utilizes MLLMs to derive expressive instructions from user input. Venture Beat offers an example: a user could tell MGIE to "make the sky more blue," and MGIE would interpret this as "increase the saturation of the sky region by 20%."

How MGIE interprets natural language | Image Credit: Apple, UC Santa Barbara

Then, once the instructions are derived from the natural-language input, it generates an edited version of the image. It can be used to create a wide range of edits, ranging from color adjustments to generating or removing parts of an image.

MGIE is open-source and available on GitHub for anyone to try. The GitHub page allows users to snag the code, data, and pre-trained models.

The speed of image generation will vary significantly based on hardware performance. Also, models such as this are incredibly RAM hungry.

Apple has been working behind the scenes on its AI-assisted features for some time now. In January, code in the iOS 17.4 beta suggested that Apple is working on a new AI-powered version of Siri.

Apple stock has taken a beating as of late, in part because analysts have loudly proclaimed that the company is behind Meta, Google, and Microsoft in generative AI implementation. It's not clear why this wasn't a problem when it wasn't first to a mobile phone, a tablet, a smartwatch, or a VR headset, but is with generative AI.

Perhaps to dissuade those analysts, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said that Apple is spending "a tremendous amount of time and effort" on AI features that will be announced in the coming months. He also noted that Apple has been working internally on generative AI.



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foregoneconclusion

Ultimately, it's just a huge waste of electricity similar to crypto. 

robin huber

Anyone thinking that if you click on the link provided to try editing your photos will be disappointed. Unless you are a coder or computer scientist it’s just gobbledegook. 

gatorguy

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least a half-baked something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

foregoneconclusion

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Every company rushed out AI. It's the standard tech sector fast-break that hopes to get it entrenched into daily lives before the legal aspect and regulatory aspect catches up.

StudioSoup

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

This is kind of a silly take for a publicly traded company.  The executive team has a fiduciary responsibility to help maximize shareholder value.  Doing so requires them to carefully consider long-term vs short-term costs and gains resulting from their actions as they navigate the ship, and t's the very reason why much of their compensation is tied to long-term stock value.  Doing so helps maintain alignment of their personal financial incentives with positive long-term performance for shareholders.

Additionally, Apple has been working on AI for years... They have simply chosen to refer to it as "machine learning" instead.  These have been the baby steps, as you call them, and it's unfounded to now say they're doing anything knee-jerk or just started putting resources into AI only recently.  And putting out something open source before integrating it into their products, as outlined in this article, is also part of their baby steps.  

Apple reacts to changes in market demands and technological advances just like any other organization which doesn't want to become a technological dinosaur.  They would be doing the brand and shareholders a disservice if they didn't put significant resources into AI pursuits and there's no reason to think the fruits of those pursuits will not ultimately be integrated into their product line in thoughtful and useful ways.  Nothing about this is silly.  

StrangeDays

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least a half-baked something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

Do you realize how patently absurd your claim is? Apple doesn’t manage to its stock price. Never has. It manages to delight the customer, and its stock price is the result of that. 

I dunno how some of you can follow Apple with such obsession yet still be clueless about how they operate. 

You’re confusing Apple for what other companies do, when in fact Apple is held to the light as the example of firms who don’t do this. Steve Denning wrote about this specifically in Forbes years ago:

The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/

Stabitha_Christie

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least a half-baked something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

Apple has been publishing AI research for the last seven years. They have also been contributing models to the open source community. There is nothing rushed or half-baked here, just uninformed commentary. 

tmay

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least a half-baked something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

You seem bitter, as if Google isn't getting enough stock market love.

gatorguy

tmay said:

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least a half-baked something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

You seem bitter, as if Google isn't getting enough stock market love.

It has nothing to do with stock prices. I don't have a single share of Alphabet (Google), and  I'm pretty sure you and I had that exchange sometime back

mattinoz

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least a half-baked something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

Sorry, but the article doesn't support your position here. Given it covers Apple's long-term cooperation with a respected University and team of in-house staff with researchers even in-house staff as university researchers working on such projects. That shows they are very serious and long-term about AI and pure research and baking things before adding them to products by offering up open-source for interested parties to have a stab at breaking them or even using them productively. 

Indeed, the very opposite of me to rush out dumped on an unsuspecting public. 

OnPartyBusiness

I’m very happy to see that Apple is taking Siri seriously now, but for as long as people have been complaining about it, I wonder why they didn’t do it before…

9secondkox2

“Models such as these are incredibly RAM hungry.”

great. Now hopefully that will motivate Apple to start offering useable amounts of RAM in base model Mac’s. 

9secondkox2

OnPartyBusiness said:

I’m very happy to see that Apple is taking Siri seriously now, but for as long as people have been complaining about it, I wonder why they didn’t do it before…

They’ve likely been working on serious under hood upgrades such as this for a long time and wanted to make a splash with all of it at once. 

mattinoz

9secondkox2 said:

OnPartyBusiness said:

I’m very happy to see that Apple is taking Siri seriously now, but for as long as people have been complaining about it, I wonder why they didn’t do it before…

They’ve likely been working on serious under hood upgrades such as this for a long time and wanted to make a splash with all of it at once. 

They are working hard as per other reports to make them less RAM hungry. Let's face it: Apple will add a new-fangled core type to the SOC if it will help them avoid adding more RAM. ie "Introducing the A19Pro with new Analogue AI cores (...but same RAM)"

avon b7

The claim that 'Apple is behind' is based on what has been released to date. Not on what is happening behind the scenes.

In that sense, and this is unquestionable, Apple is behind. 

What's actually going on? 

Given the various rumours and some comments from people here and other sources, Apple is scrambling to get something going.

From some comments, you might even think 'scrambling frantically' could be more appropriate. 

Tim Cook has almost gone out of his way now to put AI into Apple's upcoming releases. 

The first step was to not even say the words Artifical Intelligence. That was telling and commented on at the time. They went out of their way to not mention it at all and point instead to what has been present (everywhere) since 2017: machine learning. That wasn't a great idea. 

Since then some progress has probably been made and now Tim can bring himself to at least say AI and even pick up on an analyst comment to plug what's coming. That is a huge change. 

It's even entirely possible that the entire AVP presentation was brought forward as a means to pull attention away from all the talk of AI. 

Even with a WWDC focus on AI the actual results still won't start to show up until year end. 

In essence Gatorguy is correct. 

It's looking very like a rush job to claim back some AI mindset because that is where the buzz has been for the last couple of years. 

Trying to claim otherwise is silly. 

Everyone is working with universities and open source but when you look at what has come to market over the last two years and the lack of any Apple offering the conclusion is clear. 

AI, under any description you want to apply to it, has made huge strides for consumer and industry facing technologies with real (as opposed to 'hinted at') solutions. 

The fallout has also been noteworthy for both the positive and negative aspects of what has arrived. 

Apple's solutions, whatever they may be when they arrive, will also be potentially polemic. 

Apple is basically sending a marketing message saying 'watch this space' while competitors have been actively filling that space with solutions for the last two years. 

I'm sure Phil would love to dust off his '......., my ass!' line, but the last time he used it, it ended up backfiring on him with a product that 'innovated' Apple into a corner it stayed on for literally years. 

Instead of that, I fully expect them to do what they did with 5G (where they were also behind). Keep pretty quiet and then basically make the keynote revolve around AI. 

foregoneconclusion

avon b7 said:

The claim that 'Apple is behind' is based on what has been released to date. Not on what is happening behind the scenes.

In that sense, and this is unquestionable, Apple is behind. 

LOL...the market is being flooded with so-called AI products by all kinds of different companies. That should provide a rather large hint as to the relative difficulty of producing "AI" products, i.e., it's not that difficult. Even if Apple were behind, it wouldn't take very long to catch up. You also have to remember that a lot of these products are just ignoring the rights aspect of the equation in order to even be released. ChatGPT's developers have already admitted that it can't function without using copyrighted content. 

Creating an OS that the public actually wants to use appears to be infinitely more difficult than doing an "AI" program. 

avon b7

foregoneconclusion said:

avon b7 said:

The claim that 'Apple is behind' is based on what has been released to date. Not on what is happening behind the scenes.

In that sense, and this is unquestionable, Apple is behind. 

LOL...the market is being flooded with so-called AI products by all kinds of different companies. That should provide a rather large hint as to the relative difficulty of producing "AI" products, i.e., it's not that difficult. Even if Apple were behind, it wouldn't take very long to catch up. You also have to remember that a lot of these products are just ignoring the rights aspect of the equation in order to even be released. ChatGPT's developers have already admitted that it can't function without using copyrighted content. 

Reducing things to ChatGPT or similar is not representive of anything, and ChatGPT itself has still been disruptive in many ways. Many of those positive.

Anyone who has found it helpful has effectively won in their objectives. 

They won't have issues with where the underlying data came from.

There is more to this than ChatGPT though. Much more. 

Away from generative options, LLM's are being fed all manner of 'clean' data (no rights issues) to work on and are being used all over the place and the 'relative difficulty' of producing those solutions is very, very high.

Cost and compute requirements are extremely high. 

More importantly though, the point of Apple being behind still stands. 

Catching up is irrelevant. The point is the situation today. 

michelb76

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least a half-baked something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

Have you used any of the commercial AI tools? They are all rushed out. Some are less than half-baked, some are slightly better. None of them are fantastic.

tmay

avon b7 said:

foregoneconclusion said:

avon b7 said:

The claim that 'Apple is behind' is based on what has been released to date. Not on what is happening behind the scenes.

In that sense, and this is unquestionable, Apple is behind. 

LOL...the market is being flooded with so-called AI products by all kinds of different companies. That should provide a rather large hint as to the relative difficulty of producing "AI" products, i.e., it's not that difficult. Even if Apple were behind, it wouldn't take very long to catch up. You also have to remember that a lot of these products are just ignoring the rights aspect of the equation in order to even be released. ChatGPT's developers have already admitted that it can't function without using copyrighted content. 

Reducing things to ChatGPT or similar is not representive of anything, and ChatGPT itself has still been disruptive in many ways. Many of those positive.

Anyone who has found it helpful has effectively won in their objectives. 

They won't have issues with where the underlying data came from.

There is more to this than ChatGPT though. Much more. 

Away from generative options, LLM's are being fed all manner of 'clean' data (no rights issues) to work on and are being used all over the place and the 'relative difficulty' of producing those solutions is very, very high.

Cost and compute requirements are extremely high. 

More importantly though, the point of Apple being behind still stands. 

Catching up is irrelevant. The point is the situation today. 

Yeah, not so much.

The point is who is making money on AI 5 years from now. What new companies with exist at that time. What current Big Tech companies will have benefitted.

The barrier to entry in AI is minimal with enough financial backing, which, Apple certainly has in spades.

mattinoz

tmay said:

avon b7 said:

foregoneconclusion said:

avon b7 said:

The claim that 'Apple is behind' is based on what has been released to date. Not on what is happening behind the scenes.

In that sense, and this is unquestionable, Apple is behind. 

LOL...the market is being flooded with so-called AI products by all kinds of different companies. That should provide a rather large hint as to the relative difficulty of producing "AI" products, i.e., it's not that difficult. Even if Apple were behind, it wouldn't take very long to catch up. You also have to remember that a lot of these products are just ignoring the rights aspect of the equation in order to even be released. ChatGPT's developers have already admitted that it can't function without using copyrighted content. 

Reducing things to ChatGPT or similar is not representive of anything, and ChatGPT itself has still been disruptive in many ways. Many of those positive.

Anyone who has found it helpful has effectively won in their objectives. 

They won't have issues with where the underlying data came from.

There is more to this than ChatGPT though. Much more. 

Away from generative options, LLM's are being fed all manner of 'clean' data (no rights issues) to work on and are being used all over the place and the 'relative difficulty' of producing those solutions is very, very high.

Cost and compute requirements are extremely high. 

More importantly though, the point of Apple being behind still stands. 

Catching up is irrelevant. The point is the situation today. 

Yeah, not so much.

The point is who is making money on AI 5 years from now. What new companies with exist at that time. What current Big Tech companies will have benefitted.

The barrier to entry in AI is minimal with enough financial backing, which, Apple certainly has in spades.

And Venture Capital is already throwing money at every credible option in the space. Alot of these narratives seem to be pushing the market into a frenzy or gold rush mentality. They say Apple is late when they finally release something that is of use they can pitch the "better get in quick times running out" panic mode narrative to drive lots of foolsgold trade.