Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a regular discussion point for many AI companies, but it seems that Apple has a radically different view than the majority. Here’s what the company just revealed.
Apple’s AI head skeptical of artificial general intelligence
Steven Levy recently interviewed several Apple executives on the topic of Apple Intelligence. The full article based on those interviews is available here to WIRED subscribers.
Much of the discussion re-treads familiar territory from other interviews, but there was one especially interesting quote related to artificial general intelligence. It came from Apple’s Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy, John Giannandrea.
Unlike a number of its competitors, Apple had no interest in producing artificial general intelligence, a quest that to the company seems unrealistic and almost frivolous. “The most credible researchers in the field believe there are many unsolved problems and breakthroughs required,” says Giannandrea. “The idea that you’re scaling up these technologies to go to AGI is very naive.”
Giannandrea’s skepticism of other AI companies’ ambitions is clear.
While some may point to ever-improving new LLM models as evidence that AGI isn’t too far away, Apple seems to think differently.
He says that Apple may very well be involved in important breakthroughs—not to kickstart the Singularity, but to improve its products. “We probably have more engineers working on what we call ‘investigations’ than we do working on what’s going to ship next year,” he says, referring to what is apparently the company’s term for basic research.
In other words, Giannandrea isn’t ruling out Apple being involved in AGI-related breakthroughs, but the end goal isn’t AGI, it’s user-facing products to improve people’s lives. And Apple’s AI head thinks some common AGI optimism is ‘very naive.’
9to5Mac’s Take
AGI optimists might point to Giannandrea’s quote as yet another piece of evidence that Apple is behind in AI.
They may be right, but I tend to think it’s more of a helpful dose of realism. Apple’s main revenue source is hardware, so it can understandably be more cynical about AGI while other companies need to talk it up to garner excitement and funding.
What do you think of Apple’s AGI views? Let us know in the comments.
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