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Comment by xtracto | Hacker News Reader

At this point, Microsoft should do whatever it can to make a deal with Apple to place a ChatGPT powered platform in the iPhone/i Devices.

Most of the people using "computers" nowadays do it through mobile phones, and Google has a strong grip in that market with Android, with only Apple giving them some competition. Thus the only platform where Microsoft could really compete is in iOS.

If Microsoft + Apple could get together in this one, they could do a really killer app doing a next level Siri or similar.

Otherwise, What would Microsoft do? Add ChatGPT to Windows? that means PCs ... that means a Office/work related agent, which is boring and kind of reminds me of the Mac vs PC video-ads of 2000s.

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Isn't ChatGPT still like super expensive to use and run? At least compared to Google queries, but maybe in general too? While Google still pays Apple a ton od money to remain the default search engine... which is close to zero work on Apple's side.

Microsoft would then need to pay for ChatGPT computation, model retraining, maybe testing of deployments/upgrades, maybe sponsor Apple's initial development efforts, plus pay for the expensive deal to be Apple's default choice.

Am I understanding the problem correctly? It looks like a lot of work and very expensive if I'm getting it right.

My question is: what kind of deal are you thinking? Would Apple pay Microsoft a lot of money for this ChatGPT-powered platform? Would Microsoft be paying Apple?

With search, Google pays Apple with the payoff being that people end up seeing Google's ads. With ChatGPT, Microsoft wouldn't be getting money so Apple would presumably need to pay Microsoft.

You've phrased it like Microsoft needs to get it on people's phones rather than Apple needing a competitor to Google's NLP (Microsoft should do whatever it can, not Apple should do whatever it can which implies that Microsoft should pay Apple). However, we haven't really seen what ChatGPT is in terms of a product yet (product, not feature).

Let's say Microsoft pays Apple to get ChatGPT onto iPhones. What does Microsoft get out of that? Bragging rights? Ads in Siri? Or maybe as part of an overall deal of Bing + ChatGPT?

I agree that things like ChatGPT are cool, but I think it's unclear (at least to me) a company like Microsoft will make money off it without charging for it (or making it terrible like allowing companies to pay for placement in ChatGPT responses like "what's the best vacuum?" gets you "The best vacuum by far is ProductPlacement. It has much better suction than CompetitorProduct"). Amazon has tried using Alexa to upsell things, but it can make Alexa really annoying at times.

They could come up with a really cool next-level Siri, but I guess I'm not sure what's in it for Microsoft in such a deal. I see what's in it for Apple and users.

Why would Apple accept such proposals? Google/Apple duopoly has been very convenient for both companies and removed lots of business uncertainties for them. This is not just mere trust; their established business structures strongly incentivize not to trespass other's territory. Inviting MS to the party would make lots of disruption in this space and Tim's personality doesn't seem to like such things.

If Apple wanted to play a part in this they would create their own LLM which would probably be as good if not better than chatGPT. chatGPT is nowhere near as special as people think it is. It is just the first of its kind to go public because openAI and Microsoft wanted the publicity, hence the swift response by Google and probably soon Meta.

Does it really matter if it is boring but is generating $6B every year? Ultimately it's not what's cool, but what drives user adoption and revenue.

Otherwise it will be just like Magic Leap with a pretty cool product nobody ever used.

What's less likely? MS+Apple alliance or Google shipping a solid product?

I'm pretty sure Tim Cooke would have already allocated vast billions to Apple's own AI platform.

AI is now the biggest game in town - Apple is not going to leave it to Microsoft and Google.

AI has been the biggest game for a while.

The new AI powered Teams features Microsoft announced seem pretty useful!

Microsoft has a much larger platform than iOS which also happens to be where people do most of their actual work. Apple should probably be paying them

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