It is pointed out that Apple's prudence and the malfunction of the development team are hindering the efforts of the voice assistant 'Siri' and AI, and there are concerns about missing the new era of AI

In recent years, major global technology companies such as Microsoft and Google are actively working on the development of AI products. Similarly, Apple, a major global company , is also actively acquiring AI-related companies , but overseas media The Information reports that Apple's team working on voice assistant Siri and AI has lost employees and executives. It was reported that Apple's AI efforts were not progressing well, as it was caught between speculation.

Apple's Siri Chief Struggles With Turf Wars as New AI Era Begins — The Information
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apples-siri-chief-struggles-as-new-ai-era-begins

Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future - 9to5Mac
https://9to5mac.com/2023/04/27/apple-employees-siri-struggles/

Apple AI teams struggle to modernize Siri
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/04/27/internal-fighting-and-privacy-concerns-hinder-apples-ability-to-modernize-siri

Report Details Turmoil Behind Apple's AI Efforts, 'Siri X,' and Headset Voice Controls - MacRumors
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/27/report-details-turmoil-behind-siri-and-apple-ai/

In 2018, Apple scouted John Giannandrea , who was Google's AI-related department chief, to break the state that voice assistant Siri was lagging behind competitors. At the time of writing, Mr. Giannandrea was Apple's senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, but Apple's AI-related departments were plagued by ``organizational dysfunction and executives' lack of ambition for AI.'' It is said that the underlying backend technology has not been improved.

Apple scouts Google's artificial intelligence (AI) development chief, possibly greatly affecting Siri upgrade - GIGAZINE

The Information, which interviewed dozens of employees who worked in Apple's machine learning and AI groups, said one of the problems facing Giannandrea's Siri development team was ``employee retention.'' I'm here.

In the second half of 2022, three engineers who were in charge of implementing AI at Apple left the company and moved to Google. The engineers were so competent that Google CEO Sundar Pichai directly scouted them, and Apple CEO Tim Cook tried to persuade him to stay with the company, but in the end, Google decided to develop a large-scale language model. decided to work on it. According to people involved, the three changed jobs because they thought that Google, not Apple, was better suited to work on ``large-scale language models that can produce human-like reactions.''

According to The Information, the Siri development team before 2018 was in turmoil due to disputes over territory and direction among senior leaders. Apple's prioritization of user privacy protection has also hindered data collection on user interactions with Siri, and Apple executives have been reluctant to invest in data collection.

Mr. Giannandrea, who was newly appointed, tried to expand data collection for AI development, but in 2019 it was reported that he had passed the data recording the conversation between Siri and the user to an external vendor. Apple has apologized for the incident and has made changes to its data collection efforts.

Officially apologized for Apple recording the conversation between the user and Siri and letting an external vendor listen to it - GIGAZINE

In addition, chat AI such as ChatGPT often makes ``inappropriate remarks'' and makes a noise, but Apple's senior executives who emphasize brand image want to avoid Siri's unfavorable reaction as much as possible. points are also noted. Apple has a team of about 20 writers pre-creating Siri's basic responses, and has refused to add the ``feature for Siri to perform long dialogues like chat AI'' proposed by engineers.

Siri's development engineers, who were working on a feature to answer questions using content on the web, collided with the designer team in 2019 over 'accuracy of Siri's answers,' The Information reports. The design team demanded near-perfect accuracy before the feature was released, but engineers spent months persuading the design team, arguing that it was impossible to scrutinize the huge number of questions users were asking in advance. I was. In addition, the designer team wanted to make Siri look like an ``omniscient voice assistant'' and refused to implement a function for users to report concerns and problems with Siri's answers.

Some Apple employees have changed jobs disappointed with the company's slow decision-making and conservative approach to large-scale language models, and there are voices of dissatisfaction with Siri within Apple. The development team behind Apple's Reality Pro AR/VR headset has expressed disappointment with the headset's voice control demonstrated by the Siri development team, to the point of considering building an alternative voice control system, The Information said. is reporting. In addition, it seems that the plan to develop a voice control system separately from Siri was eventually abandoned.

'These incidents explain why many former employees who left Apple's AI group are skeptical that Apple will succeed in developing its next AI product based on large language models,' The Information said. I do,' he said.

In March 2023, it was reported that Apple was exploring the possibility of integrating chat AI like ChatGPT into Siri. However, former Apple engineer John Barkey points out that Siri's code is very complex and that it takes a huge amount of time to improve the dataset and add features.

Report that Apple is exploring the possibility of integrating interactive AI like ChatGPT into Siri - GIGAZINE