At the Apple WWDC 2024 conference, Apple’s AI became the most eye-catching focus. However, Apple’s AI is not the AI that everyone talks about, but Apple’s unique concept: Apple Intelligence, Apple Intelligence.
Apple Intelligence is defined as a personal intelligent system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, utilizing the capabilities of Apple chips to understand and create language and images, as well as take action across apps. In other words, it is a generative AI model built into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, with chips from the Apple M series and dedicated cloud servers.
When personal phones begin to integrate AI and open up to users, the AI era is considered to have opened its doors to every Apple user.
Not so fast. Apple integrates the multi-modal large model Chat GPT-4o from Open AI, one of the most advanced AI models in the world.
I wrote an article more than half a month ago, “For most learners, GPT-4o is a cheating killer“, discussing the impact of this AI large model on learners, which may be revolutionary: “There may be an insurmountable chasm between diligent learners and cheating learners, and the two sides of the chasm may be a huge gap in class, achievement, and happiness.“
However, the Chat GPT large model from Open AI is not open to Chinese users at all. Even if you use incognito browsing and safe mode scientific internet access, you cannot use it. Apple AI opens the AI era to every user, but for Chinese users, it may open the door to another room.
Due to compliance requirements, the next iPhone 16 integrated with Apple Intelligence will replace GPT-4o with domestic AI products when sold in China. Otherwise, domestic users will not be able to enjoy the features of Apple AI. According to earlier reports, the domestic AI large model that will be replaced may be Baidu’s Ernie Bot.
If domestic AI can be comparable to international general AI, then there is nothing to worry about. However, the gap between domestic AI and international general AI is still very obvious.
If it’s just a technical gap, I believe that most domestic Apple users will not mind too much. Although domestic AI cannot be said to be far ahead, at least it can keep up.
However, the gap between Baidu AI and international AI is a gap in business ethics.
Domestic Baidu is a company that started at about the same time as Google internationally. Google started a little earlier, founded in September 1998, and Baidu was founded in January 2000, with a difference of less than a year and a half, so it can be considered to have been born at the same time. As a search engine, after Google withdrew from China, Baidu focused on bidding for advertising rankings. When users click on Baidu, the first few pages may be advertisements, and as long as they pay, the search results will be placed at the top. This eventually led to the infamous “Wei Zexi incident” (click to learn more).
Did the Wei Zexi incident make Baidu change its ways? I don’t think so. Baidu has neither suffered punitive damages nor shown any signs of reflection. Users still easily fall into traps when using Baidu’s search results, becoming the leeks harvested by Baidu’s algorithm; in contrast, Google, which abandoned the Chinese market long ago, is better and safer to use with the same Chinese search term than Baidu.
In terms of technical gaps, domestic users have the patience to give domestic large models time to grow and develop; but in terms of gaps in business ethics, the more advanced the technology, the less safe domestic users will be.
Therefore, starting from the iPhone 16, which will be released in the second half of this year, we may part ways with the world. The iPhone 16 with built-in Baidu Ernie Bot, domestic users may need to be more careful and cautious than using the Baidu search engine. The large model algorithm that penetrates privacy will hold every user firmly.
This is not the worst.
The iPhone with built-in AI, in a sense, redefines the phone. Just as the first generation iPhone came out of nowhere, the phone began to be defined as a personal mobile terminal, and calls and communication were just one of hundreds of thousands of functions. Starting from the iPhone 16, the phone may be redefined as a personal AI terminal, and users do not need to download apps, and the phone can allow users to conveniently use AI applications in various scenarios.
It is said that the technical gap between domestic AI and international AI, given time, also has the opportunity to catch up, as long as the gap is not widened. However, the gap in the technical foundation may lead to development going in opposite directions. The internet environment for international AI training is completely different from the internet environment for domestic AI training.
The data in the chart below shows the proportion of information in various languages on the global internet. As of half a month ago, the proportion of Chinese information on the global internet was only 1.3%, which also includes traditional Chinese information from Taiwan Province and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The proportion of simplified Chinese information may be less than 1%. Moreover, the proportion of Chinese information has been decreasing over time, and decreasing. In contrast, English information accounts for more than half.
International AI is trained in the global internet information pool and grows freely without any restrictions, while domestic AI is trained in a simplified Chinese information pool of less than 1% and grows under strict review in accordance with compliance requirements. This does not even consider the “water quality” of the simplified Chinese information pool itself.
Therefore, this is not just the gap between the international version and the domestic version of the iPhone, but it is very likely the future gap between Chinese and foreign mobile phones. Apple may just be the first to define the phone as a personal AI terminal, and not just a personal mobile internet terminal. Next, Chinese and foreign mobile phones will all use the definition of a personal AI terminal for design.
It can be imagined that personal AI terminals will change human life. However, personal AI terminals with different ethics, logic, and fields will change human life in different ways, going their separate ways and becoming unrecognizable.
Let’s wait and see.
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