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Comment by kolinko | Hacker News Reader

As for privacy - Apple does most, if not all AI processing on-device. E.g. Siri understands voice commands when offline (although may work worse then I think).

A good on-device assistant would be super useful: - instead of searching for a setting, you just tell it to change a device setting - decent appointment/reminder setting ("remind me to invite joe to my next birthday party" -> and it knows who Joe is, and how to set up such a reminder) - all kinds of search ("what was that book about startups that someone recommended to me a year ago?", "open up a tracking page for that thing I ordered last week", "show me a photo of XX I took last summer") - managing e-mails the way old-school secretaries did - "any important messages?", or "reply to everyone I'm out of office, unless it's related to X"

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As I said, while this is usefull for others, I have zero need for any of this. Settings? I know where to find those. Setting alerts? Use the standard calendar and timer apps. Internet search? Type it.

I make a point to not share my search history with anyobe, or any other data as much as possible. And I wont start doing so to enable some AI gadget I am more than happy to live without.

I think it will be more like:

"Pixie, reply to that email for me"

"Pixie, book that car service for me and remind them they promised a free brake fluid replacement"

"Pixie order all the ingredients I need to make my wife her favourite dish"

"Pixel, buy everyone in my family birthday presents"

I will 100% pay for that capability, and as someone that uses GPT4 to basically do my job for me, it really does not seem that far off. And I do think Google has an advantage here over Apple or anyone else, not just in Hardware, but in the enormous amount of data and information they have about both people in general, and specifically me.

I won't let any AI read my e-mails, let alone reply to them. I discuss car services when I drop of the car at the workshop, and the workshop confirms the details. I don't want an AI to know anyones favorite dish, and delivery services suck for fresh ingredients anyway. And I think about presents before buying them, that is a crucial bit of gifting things to people, especially if you care about them.

By the way, if I would use ChatGPT for my job, let alone letting it do for me, I'd be fired, worst case go to jail. And even if not, what would prevent my employer from firing me anyway if a basically free to use web service can do it at the same level I can?

I think you'll find yourself in the minority soon.

My grandma said, "I won't send any email through a computer, I prefer to write it by hand and have it delivered by a human being".

Although maybe it will be even weirder with AI assistants sending birthday greetings to other people's AI assistants and then your AI assistant summarizing who sent you birthday greetings.

The fact is the next generation moves on and uses new tools. I don't think AI will replace our jobs but people who are good at their jobs can, with the help of AI, outcompete people who are just good at their jobs but don't use AI.

The parent you were replying to may currently be able to automate what they are doing with the help of AI but I don't think that will last long as jobs end up requiring a mix of human and AI capabilities.

Replying to email is one thing - a pita to implement securely.

But reading? On-premise? You already allow basic algorithms to read your mail, for spam control and whenever you search through your messages. Having a better algorithm (as long as it's still on device) has no difference in terms of safety.

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