🍎 Apple’s big AI moves

ALSO: Apple Intelligence comes next month

Estimated Read Time: 5 minutes

Apple is releasing iPhone 16 and IOS 18, alongside an announcement for the initial release date for Apple Intelligence, their suite of AI features. It’s a lot to take in… and this will affect how millions of people primarily use AI in their daily lives. Let’s dig in!

• 🍎 Apple’s big AI moves for iPhone.

• 👀 The CIA and MI6 use generative AI.

• 🗣️ Audible is using AI clones.

• 📝 AI employees are signing a petition for new laws.

🍎 Apple’s big AI moves for iPhone

What happened: iPhone 16 has launched… but IOS 18’s AI features have been delayed until October next month. And even then, most Apple Intelligence features will rollout over time. The delay has given rise to concerns that iPhone sales will dip below expectations.

The details: 

• iPhone 16 and 16 Pro are coming out this month. They’re the first iPhones made specifically to use generative AI… but the AI features will mostly be delayed to October. Preorders begin on the 13th.

• The new iPhones will include a new Siri which can pull text from your messages. These new iPhones will also take full advantage of Apple Intelligence, the big suite of AI features for Apple Devices, when it releases next month with IOS 18.1.

• Some other features include new Emoji options and a more customizable home-screen.

• IOS 18 is releasing on the 16th of September, but most of the AI features are delayed until IOS 18.1’s release date in October. This includes Apple Intelligence, the full AI suite featuring natural conversations with Siri and multiple AI assistant features.

• Also worth noting that Apple says features will begin rollout, meaning more features will be added over the next coming months.

• The rollout of Apple Intelligence includes Macs and iPads as well.

• Apple Intelligence includes features such as: the already mentioned natural conversations, AI-powered photo editing tools, summarizations of online articles, automated transcriptions of voice messages, writing assistance, and image generation features. It’s a lot, but not all of it is coming at once.

• Apple’s new feature, Visual Intelligence, lets you instantly learn about anything you see. It’s their take on Google Lens. The feature is coming at an unknown time in the near future (I’d bet with IOS 18). It uses a combo of on-device AI and Apple’s cloud services.

• Visual Intelligence uses “Camera Control,” the new camera button on the side of the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro phones.

• Analysts believe the delay for IOS 18’s AI features, as well as the slower rollout once they arrive, may reduce iPhone sales below expectations. These AI features are a big excuse for customers to upgrade, since most phones function perfectly fine otherwise. It’s been harder for companies to increase phone sales in recent years.

Takeaway: That’s a lot to take in. But the breakdown is simple: Apple’s new AI features are incredibly promising but only available on newer iPhone models (which are now made specifically to cater to AI) and iPads/Macs with the proper chipset. But the AI features won’t launch with the phones (they’re behind schedule) and many features will rollout over time, even after the release of IOS 18.1 next month.

🤫 The CIA and UK’s MI6 have revealed that they are using generative AI to enhance intelligence operations, including tasks like data summarization, identifying key information, and red-teaming their own systems for security. They emphasized that AI is crucial for dealing with tech-driven threats from adversaries like Russia and China. Apparently the Ukraine war has demonstrated how AI can influence warfare. Bring out the battle robots!

⚡️ xAI’s Colossus supercomputer, featuring 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, is facing power supply issues because requiring massive energy to run Colossus. I’ll pretend to be 😱. There’s even rumors they are using unpermitted gas turbines to meet demand. Geez. There’s additional criticism because all of this power allows xAI to mostly just catch up to and match OpenAI and other competitors.

🗣️ Audible is using AI clones

What happened: Amazon is testing a new feature allowing Audible narrators to create AI-generated voice clones of themselves. The US-only beta aims to speed up audiobook production by letting narrators use AI to record books, with plans to extend the program to authors, agents, and publishers later this year.

The details:

• Audible narrators can train AI voice replicas by submitting a voice recording. Amazon promises that narrators will be compensated via a royalty-share model.

• Narrators maintain control over which AI-generated projects they want to voice. A pretty good move.

• The beta includes tools for narrators to adjust pronunciation and pacing of their AI voice.

• Audible guarantees voice replicas won’t be used without the narrator’s approval.

• The feature is currently free for beta participants, but there may be future costs.

• Fun Fact: Audible has already used virtual voices for 40,000 titles since introducing synthetic voice technology last year.

Why it matters: I think audiobooks would always go this way. Having a paid program with royalties allows for voice clones to be contained in a controlled, fair way for the narrators, which may help keep them in business. The only question is how fair are the royalties?

📝 AI employees are signing a petition for new laws

What happened: AI employees from multiple big companies made a statement to California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign Senate Bill 1047, which seeks to regulate powerful AI models. 

The details: 

• The Senate Bill aims to regulate advanced AI models to prevent misuse in areas like biosecurity and cyberattacks. It basically focuses on AI safety.

• About Senate Bill 1047: Developers must assess and confirm that their AI models are safe before training them. They also need third party testing. If a model fails a safety assessment, developers must be able to shut down or limit the model’s capabilities.

• As always, implementation would be key. Everything else is just ideas.

• The petition’s employees come from every major company, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Meta.

Why this matters: This could spark further regulation in the US, especially at a national level. Combine this with the recent AI treaties and suddenly big AI companies are facing serious scrutiny. Which is good. AI is too important and powerful to leave unchecked.

👻 The Ghost in the Shell

Source: Midjourney

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