I’ve watched the keynote and read some stuff on the internet and I’ve found this video about a dude talking about the new update (I linked it here because if you didn’t see the keynote, this is probably enough)
Is it just me, or… does no one address that Apple does a Microsoft move by basically scanning everything on every machine and feeding this into their LLM?
Microsoft’s thing takes a screenshot of everything on your screen and saves and indexes it. Opened up your password manager and revealed a password? Saved. Opened a porn site in a private tab in any browser aside from Edge? Saved. Opened up a private encrypted chat to try to get away from your abusive partner/parents? Saved and indexed. Logged into a portal at work showing HIPAA information? Saved and indexed.
Apple’s thing is basically a better search feature of all the data you already have saved, that apps have already opted-in to sharing. It runs on device, and Apple has promised they do not send the data back to train the models. They also have some generic ChatGPT-like tool to help rewrite your documents, but that’s 100% opt-in so nobody really cares about it, it’s easy to just not use.
Came here to say this much less eloquently. Left this comment cause I wanted to use eloquent 😌
It’s not ChatGPT like, it is ChatGPT, specifically GPT-4o.
See press release and versioning at bottom of the page.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/06/introducing-apple-intelligence-for-iphone-ipad-and-mac/
So, Apple is using the latest version of the best LLM out there and its opt-in. That’s a hugely different approach as you mentioned.
Siri can ask ChatGPT but only if you explicitly allow it. They specifically said ChatGPT is only used if you asked for something that needs world knowledge, and even then there is a prompt asking for permission to send data to ChatGPT every time. Apple even said in interviews that you can completely disable the ChatGPT integration if you want.
I saw a comment somewhere that said: “people have been burnt by Microsoft too many times, while Apple still has a benefit of the doubt for many people in regards to privacy”. People still have some trust in Apple, compared to MS.
Edit: Found the comment by @deweydecibel@lemmy.world
If Apple announced Recall? Apple wouldn’t announce Recall, that’s the whole point. Apple wouldn’t be so brazen and stupid to push a tool that is so obviously invasive and so poorly implemented. Apple earned its trust by not making those mistakes.
But if they did decide to say fuck it and implement something like Recall, of course people would trust them. That’s what trust means: consumers take them at their word. But if it’s as bad as Microsoft’s Recall, Apple would burn all that trust when people found out.
People don’t believe Microsoft because they have long since burned any trust and good will for most of their consumers. They have proven time and time again they don’t give a shit about users’ wants or needs, and users have felt that. So when they announce Recall, they have no earned trust. No believes them. There’s no good faith to cushion this. And it turns out everyone was right not to grant them that trust.
As far as I know, Apple’s implementation of LLMs is completely opt-in
And local. Probably. Maybe. Perchance.
It’s all local, except when it isn’t.
It’s both local and remote, according to their page. There are some activities that run on a “private cloud”. I’d imagine that image creation is one of those
While this is true, is it fact?
That we’ll probably only know after someone tries to test all the features without an active internet connection
Apple also has a MUCH better track record relating to user privacy over pretty much every other big tech company.
On the contrary, Apple’s track record for collecting data is deliberately obtuse and utilizes dark patterns to make it as difficult as possible to not upload your info to them.
From the article,
the user is given the option to enable Siri, but “enabling” only refers to whether you use Siri’s voice control. “Siri collects data in the background from other apps you use, regardless of your choice, unless you understand how to go into the settings and specifically change that,”…“In practice, protecting privacy on an Apple device requires persistent and expert clicking on each app individually"…the steps required are “scattered in different places.”
Apple devices might be arguably more secure than other vendors, but security and privacy are not the same thing.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=B_SqrNMPV5c&pp=ygUMTWFjIG9zIHNwaWVz
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Apple at least talks about privacy and security. Windows just dumped that shit right on you and is planning on storing in unencrypted databases… like, I would expect there to be enough brainpower at M$ to be able to write an application and then secure it… Just use Linux and when Ubuntu and Fedora decide they want to implement those features… OpenBSD it is :D
https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2024/05/deleted-iphone-photos-show-up-again-after-ios-update
So photos were forever stored on a database… How’s that privacy and security? This isn’t even just another iCloud leak… these were things people thought were deleted coming back.
Apple likes to talk because talk is cheap. Just like Apple used to say that Apple products didn’t get viruses. Or how Google said do no evil. Talk is cheap.
I’m going to copy paste a reply I left somewhere else. This was for iOS AI, I’m unsure what the implemention for macOS is. If they are scanning everything then I do not support it.
From what I saw,
MS Recall is a 24/7 AI monitor system that captures everything you look at and saves it for later. They didn’t even do the bare minimum for protecting the data, it was just dumped in an unencytped folder where anyone get wholesale access to the data. All trust has been lost.
Apple is using AI as a tool to improve specific tasks/features that a user invokes. Things like assistant queries and the new calculator. They have said some promising things in regards to privacy, specificly with the use of ChatGPT - any inquiry sent to ChatGPT will ask the user permission first and obscure their IP. This shows they care enough to try, they have not lost our trust - but we remain skeptical.
If apple tries the same thing by scanning everything wholesale, then that’s getting over shadowed by the promises made by the implentaion on the much more popular iOS.
Mainly because Apple explained how it works and Microsoft just said we’re going to record everything you do
It’s really simple: Microsoft is a business solutions company. Microsoft helps your boss spy on you at work. Your boss is their customer, not you.
Apple is a consumer products company. You are their customer. They market their products on privacy and security. Betraying that marketing message by spying on users is shooting themselves in the foot, so they’re incentivized not to do that.
Neither company is trustworthy. Economic incentives are the trustworthy concept here. Barring screwups, we can trust both companies to do what is profitable to them. Microsoft profits by spying on users, Apple does not (not right now anyway).
My employer runs macos. So I’d argue Mac is still a business solution, but not as common as windows. Tools exist for managing macs at scale as well.
I think it’s because Apple has a “fandom”, whereas when’s the last time you heard someone being a weird fan of Microsoft outside of Xbox? It just doesn’t really exist. The people with Apple devices are often “fans” of Apple, not simply people who bought a product. I think it’s that simple.
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MS has a horrible track record on privacy or even caring about their customers; Apple, deservedly or not, has higher level of consumer’s trust
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MS brought out features too obviously ripe for abuse built in the most insecure way, lied about it and was quickly proven a liar. Apple says they built their AI in a secure way, their fans believe them and have not challenged
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Undoubtedly, there is still a huge Apple fanbase that would tell you Apple’s turds smell nice. So there’s a portion of that in the mix as well
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