The biggest tech news of the month is that Apple finally dipped its toe into the Artificial Intelligence game. At this month's World Wide Developers Conference they announced Apple Intelligence... you know, AI. Despite the cute marketing, a lot of it is what you may have already seen with Samsung, Meta, Grammarly, ChatGPT, Gemini, Google, Adobe, and a whole host of other platforms that have integrated chatbots and generative technology into their devices and apps. Apple's AI will be able to rewrite text, summarize documents, generate images, and create emojis called Genmoji. I don't know if you ever wanted to create your own emoji, but you will be able to do it with Apple Intelligence. You will also be able to crop people and objects out of photos, and have image controls similar to what Google and Samsung have been doing for the past several years. The thing is that Apple is wrapping all of this inside its updated operating systems across devices, so you won't need to subscribe to a bunch of different apps or services to take advantage of these features.
But the key part of Apple Intelligence is also its most concerning from a security standpoint. Siri will be enhanced to be a true digital assistant to help with prioritizing emails and texts, organizing and searching photos, and be able to take action across apps. But in order to do this, Apple Intelligence will need to develop what they call "Personal Context." Apple Intelligence and Siri will monitor every single thing that you do on your iPhone -- every app, every text, every interaction, right down to tracking your eye movements, and your movements in general. Your iPhone will be creating a comprehensive profile on you to a level that we have not seen done on any device.
But don't worry, because that profile will only be saved on your phone... unless Apple Intelligence needs help processing your request. At which point it will communicate with Apple's super secure Private Cloud Compute. Yes, your data and your profile will be pushed out across the internet to a server farm that hopefully is as secure as they promised. Yet, we know that there is no 100% secure system, and the type of deep profile that will be developed as the backbone of Apple Intelligence will be a gold mine for hackers, identity thieves, and any number of bad actors.
And it gets a bit worse. If Siri cannot process your request within the Cloud Compute ecosystem, it will ask to use ChatGPT. Yes, now more of your data will be sent to a third party company that doesn't have the security history that Apple does. It's supposed to be super-secret-extra-secure, but AI models improve by gathering data from their interactions with users. It is concerning.
So, what do I really think about Apple Intelligence? I am disappointed. I had hoped Apple would "Think Different" and come up with something new with AI, but instead they have created a dystopian nightmare that will put users identity and information at risk. Most of these concerning features with Personal Context, advanced Siri, and ChatGPT integration have been delayed until 2025 and will only roll out to the United States. With the security concerns, you will bet that lawmakers will be looking at this and what Apple Intelligence may eventually look like will be very different. I for one, will not be using it or enabling it on any of my devices.
Apple Intelligence will only be compatible with Macs or iPads running an M-Series processor or the iPhone 15 Pro or Max.
To learn more about Skynet Apple Intelligence, visit: https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence | 
