Seeking to catch up to Microsoft and Google, Apple is reportedly testing out language-generating AI methods on a weekly basis, sources told The New York Times.
The media giant published a lengthy report detailing how Apple, Amazon, and Google have fallen behind in the AI race as their voice assistant technologies trail more popular chatbot tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Despite facing setbacks in developing its Siri Ai assistant, Apple is now testing generative AI concepts.
- Engineers at Apple, including those from the Siri unit, have been undergoing tests of language generating concept "every week," according to the Times.
- The tech giant could have a lengthy road ahead. Former Apple engineer John Burkey told the NYT that Siri is built on "clunky code that took weeks to update with basic features."
- For example, Siri will only respond to prompts that exist within its database, and upgrading its dataset required engineers to rebuild the whole database in a process that could take weeks.
- Adding new search tools or other complex features would be expected to take up to a year, the Times reported.
- Burkey believes Apple has no clear path to make Siri a "creative assistant" like OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Similarly, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently told FT that the first voice assistants, such as Siri, Cortana, Alexa, or Google Assistant, were all "dumb as a rock."
