timmillea

There was a time when Apple always led with new technologies - mostly a deeply unprofitable time. In latter years, they work in secret, study what the competition is doing, innovates on top, patents to the hill, then embarrasses the competition. 

My first degree at Durham University starting 1992 was 50% in AI and 50% software engineering. Then no one I met outside the University had even heard of artificial intelligence nor believed in it when I explained what it was. Now AI is on the main broadcast news all the time. Even now, Nick Clegg of Meta was on the airwaves this morning explaining that the current generation of AI is simply predicting the next word or 'token' from big data. Back in 1992, Durham had a huge natural language processing system called LOLITA which was based on deep semantic understanding - an internal, language-independant representation based on semantic graphs. LOLITA read the Wall Street Journal everyday and could answer questions on it with intelligence, not parrot fashion. For my final year project, I worked on the dialogue module including 'emotion'. Then the LOLITA funding ended and that was the end of that. Had it been in the US, I can't help feeling that LOLITA would have morphed into one of the top corporates in the World. We don't support genius or foresight in the UK. 

It is truly depressing that 30 years later, the current state of AI is still neural nets trained on mediocre data sets. 

I worked on LOLITA (Large-scale, Object-based, Linguistic Interactor, Translator, and Analyser) at the University of Durham (UK) in the 1990's. Half my undergraduate education was in AI. Then.  I worked in artificial intelligence before anyone I knew knew what it meant. I think they still don't. "Simulating successful human, external behaviour" - like composing a great symphony, writing and directing a film, and so on. Not cheating in politics or killing people. 

LOLITA read the Wall Street Journal everyday and answered questions on it. It could answer questions in Chinese as easily as English, without any translation. My role was to optimise the 'dialogue' module.

The difference between those efforts and the latest LLMs, and other buzzwords, is that LOLITA attempted to model a deep, semantic understanding of the material while current AI only uses big and now-abundant data to imitate a human response.

As ever in the UK, research funding ran out and no attempt was made to exploit the project commercially. In the US, I feel it would have been a little different and the World may have been different.

Neural net based AI only replicates all the mistakes and failings of the average human. AI can achieve so much more. 

3nM is around the theoretical limit of feasibility using silicon. I wonder if there will be associated reliability/longevity issues? I would prefer some form of ECC baked in. It won't be a good day when you discover that a small percentage of your files have been slightly corrupted by an ageing 3nM SOC. 

Apple has some previous history. Apple Computer was sued by the Beatles company, Apple, for the use of the name. The eventual settlement required Apple Computer never to move into music. Over the subsequent years, Apple Computer dropped the "Computer" and moved into music. I imagine this all happened before Apple's current lawyers grew up. 

These pointless litigations do not portray Apple in a good light. 

To the EU, USB-C is all about charging interoperability. However Apple has implemented USB 3.2 Alt on the Pro's USB-C connector. This means not only using external storage at 10Gbps (75 GB/min) but also driving an external 4k display at 60Hz AND simultaneous charging. Your phone can be your new desktop. This is  a big deal. 

JamesCude said:

It's a relic from another era. Mac Studio covers 98% of the use-cases and sorry but the remaining folks who "need" these really don't- they just need to update how they handle I/O and seek more efficient processing. 

Agreed. The antiquated Pro is an inevitable victim of the switch to Apple silicon. The revolution of Apple silicon is all about bringing as much possible on-chip for speed gains and power savings. This is the antithesis of a 'tower' desktop.

I loved my 2008 Mac Pro. I could not fail to admire the beautiful engineering every time I had reason to switch a graphics card, add a hard drive, then latterly an SSD, or add more bullet-proof ECC RAM. It used so much power it kept my office warm and, when it was working hard, I couldn't hear the rain outside. Those days are gone. My modest M1 MacBook Air that I replaced it with is faster and silent. It drives a huge external display and any other functionality is provided care of Thunderbolt rather than huge, cumbersome PCI cards. 

The Mac Pro is a dead parrot. Deceased. It has outlived its evolutionary purpose. 

In the Mac Pro's favour I will say that I now require heating in my office and I find the sound of rain, and other things I couldn't previously hear, quite distracting. 

There is hardly any difference between the MacBook Pro and Air since Apple silicon. One has a fan and the other doesn't. All other differences are purely down to marketing and deliberate product placement. Improved heat sinking would remove the need for a fan, the display could be made premium and suddenly there is no need for two product lines. Ive was right. 

The cine effect of zooming in while moving the camera away is called the 'Vertigo Effect' pioneered by Sir Alfred Hitchcock in the film of that name, released in 1958. It has been much copied including in Jaws but to attribute the effect to Jaws is something of an affront. 

dope_ahmine said:

ChatGPT prompt:
16GB vs. 32GB -- Maximize a Mac's performance by choosing the right amount of memory

Reply:
Choosing between 16GB and 32GB of RAM for a Mac depends on your specific needs and intended use cases. 16GB is generally sufficient for most everyday tasks such as web browsing, word processing, and light media editing. It's a good amount for typical multitasking as well.

32GB, on the other hand, offers a performance advantage for more resource-intensive activities like professional video editing, 3D rendering, and heavy multitasking involving multiple demanding applications. It can be especially useful for users who frequently run virtual machines or work with large datasets.

Consider your workflow and the kinds of tasks you'll be performing to determine which amount of memory will best maximize your Mac's performance.
……etc……

That explains a lot of AppleInsider articles. 

One use-case missed - I bought an old 12.9" iPad Pro (2nd Gen) with 'cellular' to use with Navionics charts on a yacht at sea. Even the latest 'chart plotters' do not have a screen as large or with as much resolution and cost over ten times as much. Built-in GPS and low computational requirements for navigating make it perfectly suited. Plus it does all the other iPad uses like email, web browsing, VoiP calls, music via Bluetooth etc.. You can get waterproof cases and mounts for use in the cockpit but really, it is better kept at the chart table, permanently plugged in and charged.