Apple was revealed to be quietly developing a large model to create a chatbot "Apple GPT"

Source: The Paper

Reporter Fang Xiao

· Sources said that Apple created Ajax late last year, based on the system to make artificial intelligence-related improvements to search, Siri and maps. Ajax is now being used to create large language models and use this as a basis for developing internal ChatGPT-style tools.

· As of now, Apple has not yet launched a clear strategy to provide artificial intelligence to consumers. People familiar with the situation believe that Apple is aiming for a big announcement related to artificial intelligence next year.

Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI tool

Apple, which made no mention of artificial intelligence at the conference, has been revealed to be quietly developing artificial intelligence tools that could challenge similar products from companies such as OpenAI and Google.

Bloomberg reported on July 19 local time, citing people familiar with the matter, that Apple has built its own framework for creating large-scale language models, known as Ajax, and has also created a chatbot service based on it. GPT (Apple GPT)".

The people familiar with the matter, who did not want to be identified, also said that in recent months, the advancement of artificial intelligence has become an important work for Apple, with multiple teams collaborating on the project, including solving problems related to artificial intelligence technology. Potential privacy issues.

After Bloomberg broke the news, Apple’s stock price rebounded from the decline earlier on the 19th, rising as much as 2.3% to $198.23, a record high. Shares of Microsoft, a partner and main backer of OpenAI, fell about 1% on the news.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the news. So far, Apple hasn’t laid out a clear strategy for delivering artificial intelligence to consumers. At the developer conference in June this year, Apple did not mention artificial intelligence, but replaced it with technical language such as machine learning, but in many of its updates, it hides AI functions everywhere, such as automatic spelling correction upgrades , Headphone adaptive volume adjustment, picture editing function optimization. Some commentators believe that Apple has effectively become an artificial intelligence company, because many small functional adjustments to achieve artificial intelligence are quietly making their way into the iPhone. (For details, see The Paper’s report “Never mention AI, but Apple has become an artificial intelligence company”)

Publicly, Apple CEO Tim Cook has been wary of the flood of artificial intelligence services that have flooded the market this year. He said on a conference call in May that while the technology has potential, there are still “a few kinks that need to be ironed out.” Apple will add AI to more products, but will do so “on a deliberate basis.”

Meanwhile, Cook told Good Morning America that he himself uses ChatGPT and that the company is “watching closely.”

库克在接受采访时表示，自己也用ChatGPT，但部署AI需要“深思熟虑”。(01:33)

Ajax was first created late last year to unify Apple’s machine learning development, according to people familiar with the work on “Apple GPT.” The Ajax system is built on top of Google Jax, a machine learning framework. Apple has already made AI-related improvements to Search, Siri, and Maps based on the system. Ajax is now being used to create large language models and as the basis for internal ChatGPT-style tools.

The chatbot was reportedly created as an experiment by a small engineering team. Apple initially stopped promoting generative AI due to safety concerns, but it has since rolled it out to more employees. However, access to the system still requires special approval. Also, there is an important note: none of the output from this system can be used to develop customer-facing functionality. Even so, Apple employees still use it to assist with product prototyping. It can also summarize text and answer questions based on the data it was trained on.

Apple employees say the tool is essentially a clone of Google’s Bard, ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing AI, and doesn’t include any new features or techniques. The system, accessible as a web app, is cleanly designed and not intended for public use. So while Apple is actively improving its underlying model, it has no plans to release it to consumers just yet.

Beyond the state of the technology, Apple is still trying to determine the angle of consumer use of generative AI. Currently, Apple is working on several related initiatives, including cross-team collaboration between the artificial intelligence group and the software engineering group and cloud service engineering group to provide the infrastructure for important new features. While the company has no concrete plans yet, people familiar with the effort believe Apple is aiming for a big AI-related announcement next year.

Leading the effort are John Giannandrea, Apple’s head of machine learning and artificial intelligence, and Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior director of software engineering.

While developing its own tools, Apple is also conducting enterprise trials of OpenAI’s technology and is considering a larger contract with OpenAI.

Apple is currently hiring experts in generative artificial intelligence. In the job posting, Apple promises to apply the technology to the way “people communicate, create, connect and consume media” on iPhones and other devices. Most evocative of all is how the now-embarrassed Siri will embrace generative artificial intelligence.