Yet a research paper quietly posted online last Friday by Apple engineers suggests that the company is making significant new investments into AI that are already bearing fruit. It details the development of a new generative AI model called MM1 capable of working with text and images. The researchers show it answering questions about photos and displaying the kind of general knowledge skills shown by chatbots like ChatGPT. The model’s name is not explained but could stand for MultiModal 1.
MM1 appears to be similar in design and sophistication to a variety of recent AI models from other tech giants, including Meta’s open source Llama 2 and Google’s Gemini. Work by Apple’s rivals and academics shows that models of this type can be used to power capable chatbots or build “agents” that can solve tasks by writing code and taking actions such as using computer interfaces or websites. That suggests MM1 could yet find its way into Apple’s products.
Think how it makes it possible for one person wearing a Vision Pro to enter an environment — any environment — and while exploring that space build a perfect digital replica of that place that can also be shared with others. Thing is, this tool isn’t just a dumb representation of the place; armed with vision intelligence, the resulting shared experience wouldn’t just look like the place you were exploring, with a few parameter tweaks to correct any errors, it would effectively be a fully functioning digital representation of that space.
This is useful in all kinds of situations, from traffic management to building and facilities management, but the capacity to build true-to-life, smart and intelligent representations of spaces also extends to architecture and design. And, of course, there are evident implications for health.
Eight names are listed as authors on “Attention Is All You Need,” a scientific paper written in the spring of 2017. They were all Google researchers, though by then one had left the company. When the most tenured contributor, Noam Shazeer, saw an early draft, he was surprised that his name appeared first, suggesting his contribution was paramount. “I wasn’t thinking about it,” he says.
It’s always a delicate balancing act to figure out how to list names—who gets the coveted lead position, who’s shunted to the rear. Especially in a case like this one, where each participant left a distinct mark in a true group effort. As the researchers hurried to finish their paper, they ultimately decided to “sabotage” the convention of ranking contributors. They added an asterisk to each name and a footnote: “Equal contributor,” it read. “Listing order is random.” The writers sent the paper off to a prestigious artificial intelligence conference just before the deadline—and kicked off a revolution.
Approaching its seventh anniversary, the “Attention” paper has attained legendary status. The authors started with a thriving and improving technology—a variety of AI called neural networks—and made it into something else: a digital system so powerful that its output can feel like the product of an alien intelligence. Called transformers, this architecture is the not-so-secret sauce behind all those mind-blowing AI products, including ChatGPT and graphic generators such as Dall-E and Midjourney. Shazeer now jokes that if he knew how famous the paper would become, he “might have worried more about the author order.” All eight of the signers are now microcelebrities. “I have people asking me for selfies—because I’m on a paper!” says Llion Jones, who is (randomly, of course) name number five.
"There are things that we take a keen interest in, for instance, if the new Apple fee structure will de facto not make it in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA. That kind of thing is what we will be investigating," she told Reuters in an interview.
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Vestager also warned companies against discouraging users from switching to rivals by disparaging them, saying this kind of behaviour could trigger an investigation. Apple has said some of its changes could expose users to security risks.
The new version of AirTag software build rolling out today is build number 2A73 and firmware version 2.0.73.
Cook said he spent the morning walking along Shanghai's historic Bund river with Chinese actor Zheng Kai and having a local breakfast but did not disclose what other plans he had for this China visit.
To be clear, I’m not accusing Apple of being devious or of misleading people. I’m quite aware that I am very much an edge case, and I don’t expect that the average iPhone user has anywhere near as many pictures as I do on their device.
But it’s still remarkable to see just how much space my images occupy.
Last year, in an appearance on Rick Rubin’s podcast, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor observed that over the course of his career, music has become more ubiquitous — and, simultaneously, less special. “I kind of miss the attention music got … not that I’m that interested in a critic’s opinion, but to send something out into the world and feel like it touched places.”
A little more than six months after Reznor observed that his medium’s cachet had been diminishing, half of Pitchfork’s editorial staffers, including its editor-in-chief, were laid off and the publication was folded into GQ. Pitchfork, for a time, was a kingmaker in the music industry — pushing bands on indie labels into prime discourse while older music magazines struggled to modernize.
The iPhone in my hands right now probably contains codes that can directly install an app from a web page, and that app can further install other apps onto my phone. Even though I have no way to do that myself. But I sure hope there isn't a bug or two somewhere that someone else can exploit.
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Thanks for reading.