On Apple's AI efforts


A really interesting column by Steven Levy. Apple gave him exclusive look at its machine learning efforts in Siri and beyond.

This story of Siri's transformation, revealed for the first time here, might raise an eyebrow in much of the artificial intelligence world. Not that neural nets improved the system -- of course they would do that -- but that Apple was so quietly adept at doing it. Until recently, when Apple's hiring in the AI field has stepped up and the company has made a few high-profile acquisitions, observers have viewed Apple as a laggard in what is shaping up as the most heated competition in the industry: the race to best use those powerful AI tools. Because Apple has always been so tight-lipped about what goes on behind badged doors, the AI cognoscenti didn't know what Apple was up to in machine learning. "It's not part of the community," says Jerry Kaplan, who teaches a course at Stanford on the history of artificial intelligence. "Apple is the NSA of AI." But AI's Brahmins figured that if Apple's efforts were as significant as Google's or Facebook's, they would have heard that.

Last few months it seems Apple has really pulled back the curtain. Future products and plans are still secret as ever, of course, but Apple has been sharing much more in a series of recent features.

This feature appears to address sharp criticized with its AI efforts. People have assumed Apple fell behind because nothing very significant was apparent with Siri. A lot of attention was on this year's Apple developer conference and Apple announced some small stuff, but no major AI initiatives. Microsoft, Google, and Facebook on the other hand have been making public grand plans.

Strategically, I think it's in Apple's interest to talk more about this stuff just from an HR perspective. It must be harder to attract and retain key talent if no one knows anything about what you're doing.