- At WWDC, Apple announced “Apple Intelligence.”
- It enables convenient and easy-to-use features such as notification prioritization.
- This is a gentler, less scary version of AI. For the average person.
Does AI scare you? If not, have you ever wondered in the back of your mind… Isn't that right? Will AI replace your job? Will AI enable nation-state misinformation campaigns? Will AI doomsayers believe that Artificial General Intelligence will instigate World War III scenarios that will lead to the demise of humanity? Will AI tell you to eat glue?
Don't worry, Apple is here to ease your fears about the big bad AI, serve you a glass of warm milk, tuck you into a comfy bed, and stroke your hair until you fall asleep. During the keynote address at its annual developers conference on Monday, Apple finally revealed its intentions regarding AI.
While Google's recent events showed off futuristic things like AI search results (that ultimately ended up being embarrassing), and OpenAI's keynote in May sparked a scandal when its voice assistant resembled Scarlett Johansson's voice, making the tech's capabilities seem eerily bizarre, Apple's demo was approachable and practical. use.
(Apple actually Genuine Scarlett Johansson during the keynote in a clip from her upcoming Apple TV+ movie “Fly Me to the Moon”
It's not “artificial intelligence” but “Apple Intelligence”
And in Apple's new world of AI, we start with one rule: Don't call it “artificial intelligence.” Call it “Apple Intelligence.”
What's the difference, you may ask? Haha! Don't worry about the details or the Apple/OpenAI deal, just focus on the cool and fun things Apple can do for you.
Apple Intelligence can perform simple, useful functions. In one demo, a person needed to pick up their mother at the airport. Siri could pull flight details from email, show tracking information, and look up lunch reservation details sent via text message. Useful! Not intimidating!
Another feature is found in the Mail app: Apple doesn't let you auto-write emails, but rather helps you slightly modify them to give them a different tone (options include “Professional,” “Concise,” and “Friendly”).
Apple is taking its first steps with generative AI here — it's not saying it can do a human's job, just improve it a little.
It will also let you sort your emails into categories like primary, transactions, updates, promotions, etc., which is great (though Gmail has been doing this for a decade now), and it will also use AI to prioritize notifications and enable a “less notifications” mode (oh yeah, it happens!).
Apple Intelligence was not amazing
Still, some of the other generative ones were just plain goofy and cute, like this AI Memoji. This tool lets you create cartoon images to celebrate your friends' birthdays. It's really silly. If you send me one of my generative Memojis, just know that we'll be enemies.
These are small enhancements, many of which may already exist in other ways, like recording and transcribing phone calls or photo-editing tools to remove objects from the background of photos. (Android users are probably laughing right now.)
There was nothing surprising or entirely new about it. artificial Apple Intelligence. There were no amazing features or wow moments, just a few small, useful features that help your iPhone or computer do what it already does, but better.
AI for Average People
And this is probably a good way to introduce AI to the iPhone-owning general public around the world, who are naturally a bit skeptical of AI and worried about extreme advances that could harm humanity, and this will ensure that Apple doesn't get any embarrassing negative results from AI-generated answers.
Of course, Apple has touted its privacy credentials over its competitors, explicitly suggesting that other companies can't be trusted (and maybe they have a point).
And all of these new AI features will only be available on the iPhone 15 or 16, which launch later this year. Naturally, this begs the question: are any of these new AI features enough to actually make you want to upgrade your smartphone?
