[theferalrobot]

Given Apple's track record on anything AI related and the terrible state they keep CoreML that not only seems extraordinarily unlikely, it would take a lot of time to win developer trust and that I just don't see happening.

[hosh]

Apple doesn’t have to win developer trust or build an AI platform. They just have to build a compelling consumer product that can only function with AI, and they are better equipped to do that than Google or Microsoft. It remains to be seen if OpenAI will go that route instead of a business built on training and providing access to foundational models.

[agentcoops]

Yes, this is the most important point and I think somehow least present in even discussions here: the technical question of who produces the best/cheapest LLM/future architecture is considerably less important than who, if anyone, creates a fundamentally new and dominant consumer experience built on AI. Most of the existing players (Google, Meta) would of course prefer that nobody produces such a newly dominant paradigm of computation for end-users since it would greatly reduce their relevance and subsequently revenues. Right now, ChatGPT is the only real contender in this space. However, I think you’re correct that it’s actually Apple who is most likely to be the next who attempts such a paradigm shift. Far too early to bet, but let’s say I wouldn’t be surprised if in five years we end up in a world in which Apple has the consumer monopoly and Microsoft the business monopoly, with Google and Meta falling into irrelevance.

[gremlinsinc]

I think Microsoft is going to eat openai, I mean the company is practically half in and out of Microsoft's mouth. Bing will likely add more and more features that are native to chatGPT, Google I think will eventually get in the game, Facebook is actually doing better than Google, especially for open source models which is buoying the smaller researchers and developers.

In the end one company will build AGI or super AGI that can do the function of any existing software even games, with any interface even VR, or no interface at all - just return deliverables like a tax return. The evolution might be, give me an easier but similar QuickBooks UI for accounting to just do my taxes, the company who gets here first could essentially put all other software companies out of business, especially SaaS businesses.

The first company to get there will basically be a corporate singularity and no other company will be able to catch up to them.

[theferalrobot]

>They just have to build a compelling consumer product that can only function with AI

Yeah and I'm not talking exclusively about developer trust. Given Apple's current consumer lineup (see Siri, Apple photos, predictive text etc)... we only have evidence that they suck at ML. What makes you think they are going to suddenly transform overnight?

[Aerbil313]

> see Siri, Apple photos, predictive text etc)... we only have evidence that they suck at ML

…or that they only deal with mature tech and not the shiny new thing. Makes sense to me. I don’t doubt everyone will have a personal LLM-based assistant in their phones soon, but with the current rate of improvements to LLMs and AI in general, I’d wait for at least a year more while doing R&D in-house if I were Apple.

[theferalrobot]

You could use that apologist language for any company. If they suck at something just say they are “biding their time” No. Apple is just demonstrably behind.

Having terrible predictive text, voice to text, image classification etc isn’t just a quark of the way they do business. Those are problems with years of established work put into them and they just flat out aren’t keeping up.

[hosh]

“Apologists” … this is the domain of strategic analysis, business and products. Apple, Google, et al are not feudal lords or entities owed personal allegiance, nor sporting teams for fans to rally around, nor are we talking about morality and ethics where Apple did something wrong and apologists are justifying it.

As far as whether they are keeping up or not, I disagree, but neither of our opinions really matter unless we’re betting — that is, taking actions based on calculated risks we perceive.

[theferalrobot]

You disagree based on what? On virtually every measure they are behind in AI, I can’t think of anywhere they are ahead, please enlighten me

[hosh]

… because Siri, predictive text, etc suck because it isn’t using an LLM. Alexa, and the Google Assistants from the same era all suck as well. I don’t see how evidence that Apple sucked with pre-LLM ML is an indicator that they will suck with integrating an LLM into their products.

No one said anything about transforming overnight.

[mark_l_watson]

I have enjoyed working with CoreML over the last few years. Please share what you didn’t like about it.

[theferalrobot]

There are so many modern ML components that have terrible or no support in CoreML. Try to do any convolution other than conv2d, advanced or custom activation functions etc and you are out of luck. Exporting from PyTorch leads to all sorts of headaches with subtle behavior changes between implementations it is definitely a pain point for developers of widely used software

[mark_l_watson]

+1 thanks

[lachlan_gray]

Maybe MLX is meant to fill this gap?

https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx