[News] Apple’s AI Development Sparks Rumor – Large Language Models Without Cloud Dependency?

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As the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June approaches, recent rumors about Apple’s AI research have resurfaced. According to reports from MacRumors and Tom’s Guide, Apple is reportedly developing a large language model (LLM) comparable to ChatGPT that can run directly on devices without relying on cloud platforms.

In late February of this year, Apple reportedly decided to terminate its electric car development project “Project Titan” initiated a decade ago and redirected research funds and resources into the field of generative AI. This move has drawn significant attention to Apple’s activities in the AI sector.

Moreover, MacRumors also reports that Apple’s AI research team, led by John Giannandrea, began developing a conversational AI software, known today as a large language model, four years ago. It is understood that Apple’s proprietary large language model has been trained with over 200 billion parameters, making it more powerful than ChatGPT 3.5.

Previously, Apple disclosed that the iOS 18 operating system, set to launch this year, will incorporate AI capabilities. Recently, tech website Tom’s Guide speculated further that iOS 18 could execute large language models directly on Apple devices. However, whether Apple’s large language model can be successfully integrated into various Apple software services remains to be seen.

Using Apple’s voice assistant Siri as an example, at an AI summit held by Apple in February last year, employees were informed that Siri would integrate a large language model in the future. However, former Siri engineer John Burkey revealed to The New York Times that Siri’s programming is quite complex, requiring six weeks to rebuild the database for each new sentence added.

On the other hand, amid Apple’s AI research facing challenges, interest in its Vision Pro headset device has also begun to wane, with recent sales cooling rapidly. As per a report by Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, he has indicated that demands for Vision Pro demos are way down at Apple stores, and sales of Vision Pro at some stores have dropped from a few units per day to a few units per week.

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(Photo credit: Apple)