AI advocates would have you believe you’ll soon never have to lift a finger again. You’ll just bark demands at a device and it’ll do your bidding to perfection, based on your personal preferences.
The reality is not so simple. When it comes to AI, approaches and enthusiasm levels vary wildly, as each company weighs up whether it needs to blaze along and lead the pack in what’s perceived as the next tech gold rush. Yet the true consequences of deeply integrating AI into devices are not yet known.
Apple’s stance on AI remains curious. For years, the company refused to use the term ‘AI’. Even now, Apple tries to subvert it, attempting to have people link the term with ‘Apple Intelligence’ – an “AI for the rest of us” that’s distinct from general industry trends. But does Apple really ‘think different’ regarding AI?
Apple and AI: the good
Personal creativity is a good use-case for AI.
Emerging technology should not be the preserve of geeks. And Apple throughout its history has fulfilled its ‘for the rest of us’ promise. With AI, it seeks to do the same: Apple isn’t solely thinking about AI in terms of access – it’s framing it in terms of user-friendliness and meaningful actions.
Much of Apple’s AI integration is designed to seamlessly streamline tasks, rather than scream that it’s AI – smarter inbox sorting and photo tagging, for example. Or being able to improve creative output, by changing the tone of text or making custom movies in Photos from text prompts. Whereas rivals seem keen to supplant creatives, letting you pretend to be a ‘pro’ by automating anything from novellas to imagery, Apple wants to augment creativity – and when it doesn’t, at least keep output personal.
Apple also places a strong emphasis on privacy. AI is more successful when it works within your personal context, which increases the scope for intrusions and data breaches. According to Apple, much of its AI will be performed on-device; and when it does need to draw on external resources, your data is never stored. Notably, when third-party AI enters the equation, Apple alerts you when your input will be shared.
Apple and AI: the bad
Some of Apple’s AI output is goofy but not inherently a bad thing.
By contrast, Apple will let you quickly fashion goofy personalized portraits, or let you turn existing sketches into basic illustrations. This is only ‘bad’ if you believe Samsung is right, generative AI shortcuts are the future, and working to hone skills in the arts is a waste of time. Still, it is a quandary: Apple isn’t stomping on creatives and is trying to do the right thing, but it risks the perception – and even the reality – of being left behind.
Where there’s less doubt is in how Apple acquired data to train its AI models, which partly involved scraping the open web. The company hasn’t gone as far as Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, who remarked that there was an “understanding” that “content that’s already on the open web” is fair game, and that “[a]nyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it”. That will be news to any lawyer specializing in intellectual property rights. But Apple nonetheless marched around the web, slurping down everything from websites to YouTube subtitles. And while it has since explained how sites can opt-out, that was done long after the fact.
Apple might counter that it has also licensed content, such as Shutterstock images. But even then, it’s eating and regurgitating professional imagery. Added to scraping without consent, its moral position is rocky at best. When even Apple advocates like MacStories angrily respond to the current state of play, it’s clear Apple has aimed for ‘least worst’ rather than ‘best’ in terms of training AI models. Today, that might be inevitable – but that doesn’t make it OK.
Apple and AI: the ugly
AI might be convenient, but every interaction has environmental consequences.
On watching Apple’s WWDC demos, where rough sketches were transformed in seconds into soulless illustrations, you might consider that the ‘ugly’ aspect of Apple and AI. But that’s too literal, subjective and, frankly, snobbish. Even if those images aren’t to your taste, they will be a boon to countless users. And these images will lurk in business presentations and school reports, rather than ‘robbing’ pro-grade illustrators of income. You won’t see anyone using Apple AI tools to create cover art for Wired.
Where AI will get ugly is in its effect on the planet. A recent Google environmental report revealed its greenhouse gas emissions were 48% higher in 2023 than in 2019, driven by data center use from the sharp growth in AI. The company admits “reducing emissions may be challenging” due to increasing AI use, making its 2030 net zero target harder to reach. Apple has similar environmental goals and only a year ago included a pro-environment sketch in an event. But if Apple’s AI journey means it cannot live up to its promises once soaring AI use from hundreds of millions of Apple devices ramps up its carbon footprint, no-one’s going to be laughing.