Their brand is equally about creativity as it is about privacy. They wouldn't chop off one arm to keep the other, but that's what you're suggesting they should have done.
And yes, I know generative AI could be seen specifically as anti-creativity, but I personally don't think it is. It can help one be creative.
On the contrary, I'm shocked over the last few months how "on device" on a Macbook Pro or Mac Studio competes plausibly with last year's early GPT-4, leveraging Llama 3 70b or Qwen2 72b.
There are surprisingly few things you "need" 128GB of so-called "unified RAM" for, but with M-series processors and the memory bandwidth, this is a use case that shines.
From this thread covering performance of llama.cpp on Apple Silicon M-series …
https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp/discussions/4167
… "Buy as much memory as you can afford would be my bottom line!"
And whilst the LLM's running locally are cool, they're still pretty damn slow compared to Chat-GPT, or Meta's LLM.
If I want some help coding or ideas about playlists, Gemini and ChatGPT are fine.
But when I'm writing a novel about an assassin with an AI assistant and the public model keeps admonishing me that killing people is bad and he should seek help for his tendencies, it's a LOT faster to just use an uncensored local LLM.
Or when I want to create some people faces for my RPG campaign and the online generator keeps telling me my 200+ word prompt is VERBOTEN. And finally I figure out that "nude lipstick" is somehow bad.
Again, it's faster to feed all this to a local model and just get it done overnight than fight against puritanised AIs.
They will go off device without asking you, they just ask if you want to use ChatGPT.
In 2024 they don't have to wiretap anything. It's all being sent directly to the cloud. Their job has been done for them.
There are big risks to having a cloud digital footprint, yet clouds can be used “somewhat securely” with encryption depending on your personal threat model.
Also, it’s not fair to compare clouds to wiretapping. Unless you are implying that Apple’s infrastructure is backdoored without their knowledge? One does not simply walk into an Apple datacenter and retrieve user data without questions asked. Legal process is required, and Apple’s legal team has one the stronger track records of standing up against broad requests.
So by default, user data is not protected.
With ADP if your mom loses her encryption keys, it's all gone. Forever. Permanently.
And of course it's Apple's fault somehow. That's why it's not the default.
Yes, perhaps broad dragnet type of might be scoffed down by some judges (outside of Patriot act FISA judges ofc)
I would warn you about the general E2E encryption and encrypted at rest claims. They are in-fact correct, but perhaps misleading? At some point, for most, the data does get decrypted server-side - cue the famous ":-)"
Edit:
This line from the keynote is also suspect: "And just like your iPhone , independent experts can inspect the code that runs on the servers to verify this privacy promise.".
First off, do "independent experts" actually have access to closed source iOS code? If so we already have evidence that this is sufficient (https://www.macrumors.com/2024/05/15/ios-17-5-bug-deleted-ph...).
The actual standard for privacy and security is open source software, anything short of that is just marketing buzz. Every company has an incentive to not leak data, but data leaks still happen.
>> Independent experts can inspect the code that runs on Apple silicon servers to verify privacy, and Private Cloud Compute cryptographically ensures that iPhone, iPad, and Mac do not talk to a server unless its software has been publicly logged for inspection. Apple Intelligence with Private Cloud Compute sets a new standard for privacy in AI, unlocking intelligence users can trust.
If Apple says it, do they have any disincentives to deliver? Not really. Their ad business is still relatively small, and already architected around privacy.
If someone who derives most of their revenue from targeted ads says it? Yes. Implementing it directly negatively impacts their primary revenue stream.
IMHO, the strategic genius of Apple's "privacy" positioning has been that it doesn't matter to them. It might make things more inconvenient technically, but it doesn't impact their revenue model, in stark contrast to their competitors.
It could be a very large practical increase in assurance, but it's not what they're saying it is.
It's a decent minimum bar that other companies should also be aiming for.
Edit: ref https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
However, to me, the off-device bit they showed today (user consent on every request) represents a strategic hedge as a $3T company.
They are likely buying time and trying to prevent people from switching to other ecosystems while their teams catch up with the tech and find a way to do this all in the “Apple Way”.