Apple’s backup plan for AI could be attractive, versatile, and thrifty

Apple doesn’t have to sink billions of dollars into its own artificial intelligence solutions when it can outsource by teaming up with partners.
Dave Lee for Bloomberg Opinion:
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When all the top tech companies seem to moving in a pack toward artificial intelligence, Apple Inc. has stood startlingly apart…
There are two ways to look at this state of affairs. One is that Apple is in disarray, its AI products don’t work because it has been caught napping on the next great tech revolution and is hemorrhaging talent as a result. Another is that Cook is exercising restraint as others in Silicon Valley lose their heads.
This week’s Apple event in Cupertino, California, will be the usual affair of incremental changes to its core lineup, plus a new, thinner iPhone “Air.” The more interesting developments for the future of the iPhone are taking place behind closed doors as Apple seeks to reinvent Siri for the AI age. The company needs to reverse the virtual assistant’s status as a byword for dumb AI. No other Apple brand comes close to receiving this kind of mockery. When AI captured the world’s attention, Siri’s hopelessness became a serious problem.
Make no mistake, Apple’s first choice would have been to solve the matter in-house and use its own engineering talent to make Siri smarter. That hasn’t happened — or it hasn’t happened yet, at least. Instead, the company is now looking to outsource the task by bringing in a new tutor.
That tutor could be Google and its Gemini AI… A Google-made AI model might adequately suffice much in the way Apple used Intel chips in its Macs until it was happy its own designs were up to the task. As time goes on, and the AI market matures with new use cases, Apple can adapt as necessary.
As Plan B’s go, this outsourcing is an attractive and versatile way forward. In the current climate, you might even call it thrifty.

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MacDailyNews Take: From “it’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy” to “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” is Tim Cook’s timid Apple in a nutshell.

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