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?
Opt-in ; Respecting Agency; Explicit Consent.
Microsoft has every intention of SHOVING this down your throat, and only corporate group policy will be exempted. They will use every nag screen, dark pattern, accidently enabling with updates, randomized installs, to make it happen. Look at what they do with edge, for an example. MS absolutely does not respect consent. #MS-MeToo
Apple for all its faults, respects people when they say No, and if they say it’s opt-in, they have a track record to back that up. Apple says ‘Hey look at this cool new feature you can use’, and I think Horray - more choice.
Skimming all the comments, didn’t see this mentioned explicitly
Because I don’t use apple products and don’t keep up with the news? My work laptop is Mac, but that’s work’s problem (I hate that thing)
If you watch WWDC, they shared how it works. They have a private cloud that does not persist data on it, only processes it. Also, it’s audited by a third party and there is a cryptographic mechanism that will not allow your request to be accepted unless the server software has been publicly signed by the auditor. At least, this is my best understanding of it from what I remember.
Also, in the same presentation they announced that you can now lock your Apps and hide them, which will keep its data out of the OS search results. I am fairly certain this also means it’s opted out of ML/AI processing given that any LLM would rely on the same search index.
Mainly because Apple explained how it works and Microsoft just said we’re going to record everything you do
I saw the Apple Intelligence presentation that reads user emails and SMS like it reads everything and categorizes which is more important to you… and people take that?
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.
It’s a very simple answer Apple has guaranteed that your data will stay on your device and stay secure. This is generally trusted because Apple has a track record of keeping user data secure on the device or encrypted in the cloud even in ways Apple cannot access. Point is, when Apple says they are going to do this in a way that respects privacy, and they outline the technical details of how it will work, people trust that because there’s a track record.
Microsoft has no such trust. They have a recent track record of being intrusive and using dark patterns to persuade users to give Microsoft their data, for example in Edge there have been new feature pop-ups that require data sharing with Microsoft and the two options are ‘got it’ and ‘settings’ so accepting requires one click and rejecting requires 4 going into the settings menu and changing a few things. Microsoft is also heavily pushing Copilot which is mostly cloud-based. Furthermore, Microsoft recently showed a system that would basically screenshot your computer at very regular intervals and store them in an insecure manner. Granted it was on the device, but the way they were going to be stored meant they could be stolen with two lines of code. And let’s not forget that Windows 11 cannot be set up without a Microsoft account, so to even use your computer you have to share your email address with Microsoft. In this and many other ways they just do not act like a company that respects privacy at all, they act like the typical big tech give us everything or we will make your life difficult type company that nobody trusts.
Apple has an overly authoritarian business model. They strictly control every aspect of their ecosystem.
Apple long ago alienated the kind of people who would get upset about spying, LLMs. They either never entered the Apple ecosystem, or they left it decades ago.
because its target audience thinks it is a feature?
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).
they definitely do spy on their users and sell their data, but are very clever at marketing their items as fashionable and people fall for it
Do you have a source for this?
LMAO at thinking Apple doesn’t spy on you
Specifically about personal data…
Apple may engage third parties to act as our service providers and perform certain tasks on our behalf, such as processing or storing data, including personal data, in connection with your use of our services and delivering products to customers.
As for anonymized aggregate data…
Aggregated data is considered non‑personal data for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.
(All from Apple’s privacy page)
So they may not be explicitly selling identifiable information (which is usually pretty standard with big companies, I think), they are sharing it with other companies (which is normal)…and they’re also almost definitely selling anonymized data (which is also standard).
Exactly.
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.
…because that would just affect apple users, and not me. I don’t chose to use windows, I am forced, so I hate when they take away my choice of keeping it out of my stuff
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.
start watching at 1hr29sec for a great explanation of the vastly different approach to privacy with AI from Apple to Microsoft.
because Windows is a piece of shit that people in here are forced to use to play video games and Apple is just kind of doing its own thing being a piece of shit
I think it all remains to be seen, Apple was very specific in their wording about privacy, probably BECAUSE they saw what happened to Microsoft. We didn’t see any live demos and I am still a bit skeptical that it will work that well.
A key difference in how Apple is doing it though, is that it only exposes necessary data as context to an LLM request. Whereas Microsoft was capturing and training on everything.
I don’t have an iPhone 14 so luckily I can’t test this day one, I will wait for reviews and security researchers to look it over.
I think Apple’s emphasis on the privacy and security stuff would have happened anyway, because they’ve been positioning themselves as privacy focused for several years now.
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 😌
Well eloquented, bravo
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.
