Following Apple’s WWDC keynote this week, Greg Joswiak and Craig Federighi spoke with Laurie Segal. mostly human Podcast. During their conversation, Federighi and Jos spoke at length about Apple’s new Siri AI and Apple Intelligence announcements, the company’s broader approach to AI, and more.
I really enjoyed Federighi’s explanation of Apple’s approach to AI and why he thinks it’s perfectly understandable that some people are scared of how fast things are moving.
I think from Apple’s perspective, AI can be used as this incredibly empowering thing. But first, things are changing so quickly that it seems difficult for the average person to keep up. There is uncertainty as to where this will all lead.
And I think you can also look at this as another scale of the industrial revolution that changed our world in huge ways, but displaced many people in the process, and still occurred for about 80 years.
And now this is happening in a compressed time frame. So I think it’s no surprise that people say, “Wow, I have no idea what this means to me.”
And if you’re a student and you’re thinking, “Did I study the right thing? Were the skills I thought would be useful in that job? Will they be useful now that AI is learning all these things so rapidly?”
I think these are all reasonable ideas.
You know, we’re in California. We are optimists. We are trying to do the right thing that can play the right role in our senses. I think it all has a happy ending in the end, but I can certainly empathize with people who say, “Wow, this is a big change.”
Honestly, no place is seeing more change than software engineering right now. This is literally the first work that shows what AI can do at an incredible level.
And the people who work in my organization are all saying, “Wow, this machine can do a lot of the things that I’ve been proud to do over decades of trying to get good at, and it’s already doing it well. Are the skills that I thought would be useful, now that the AI is learning all these things so rapidly, a useful job?”
I think these are all reasonable ideas.
Federighi also explained how Siri differs from existing chatbots, particularly in terms of behavior and connection formation.
If you’re using a lot of existing chatbots, they’re focused on a pretty high degree of engagement and on the goofy side. They want to draw you in. They may encourage you to reveal something about yourself and build a connection on that basis.
And we have completely opposite views. The way we designed Siri, Siri really wants to say: “Listen, that’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to help you. I’ll help you learn about the world.”
But when you try to engage Siri as a romantic partner, Siri doesn’t respond.
You can read the full interview below. A fun conversation spanning AI and Siri, privacy, new child safety features in iOS 27, and more.
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