But but but -- people online said Apple doesn't understand AI and are too far behind Facebook and friends!
If you judge them by the usefulness of Siri, Apple is behind.
Not according to the shoot-outs I've read. They concluded they all suck about the same, sometimes in differing ways.
My knowledge is likely out of date, but some time ago, it was revealed that Apple had contracted with Wolfram to answer Siri questions.
I use Wolfram Mathematica and WolframAlpha within Mathematica and the standalone app, I find it quite poor in handling natural language questions, first because it doesn't understand the wording, second because its repository of information is very limited.
"They all suck about the same" is likely because their knowledge repositories all "suck about the same".
Here is the disconnect. Computer science studies and AI is all the rage, but the mundane unheralded unsexy heads-down task of collecting and cleaning data is where the resources truly are needed.
Getting relevant info into the system is probably the hardest part. On that count google has some advantage and they have good ai guys but their actual last mile delivery sucks ass and that's were Apple can compensate. Now that mobile windows is dead apple should open the door and collaborate with ms and bing and get serious about search (unless the plan on going at it by themselves)
Why is Apple giving competitorx a peek at their R&D?
Possibly because they have opened up their research just a bit, to make their researchers happy. They are now allowed to go to and participate in AI conferences, and apparently contribute papers. There was some press about how unhappy their AI experts were with Apple's secrecy. All the other tech companies are always recruiting hard, and their people allowed to rub shoulders with others in the field. I think that participation would have more benefits than not.
Why is Apple giving competitorx a peek at their R&D?
Possibly because they have opened up their research just a bit, to make their researchers happy. They are now allowed to go to and participate in AI conferences, and apparently contribute papers. There was some press about how unhappy their AI experts were with Apple's secrecy. All the other tech companies are always recruiting hard, and their people allowed to rub shoulders with others in the field. I think that participation would have more benefits than not.
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Maybe they also are finishing something soon?