Apple Planning to Test AI Services Using Foxconn Servers

[MacRumors]

Foxconn will exclusively supply Apple with dedicated servers for training and testing artificial intelligence services, according to Taiwan's Economic Daily News (via South China Morning Post).

The servers are to be made in Vietnam due to Apple's plan to diversify its supply chain away from China. Foxconn currently supplies servers to Amazon, OpenAI, and Nvidia for AI applications. Foxconn is already Apple's primary supplier of data center servers.

Last month, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that Apple was working on "Apple GPT" artificial intelligence projects that could rival OpenAI's ChatGPT. Apple does not yet have a "clear strategy" for creating a product for consumers, and while it could be planning to make a "significant" AI announcement in 2024, Gurman claims it has no concrete plans as of yet. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the progress of Apple's generative AI technology is significantly behind its competitors and there is no sign that the company plans to launch AI services next year.

During Apple's earnings call last week, CEO ‌Tim Cook‌ said that AI and machine learning are "core fundamental technologies integral to virtually every product" that Apple builds. AI is apparently "absolutely critical" to Apple, with Cook confirming that Apple has been investigating generative AI "for years."

Article Link: Apple Planning to Test AI Services Using Foxconn Servers

 

[senttoschool]

AI is the biggest threat to Apple's entire ecosystem.

GPT4 is demonstrating that an LLM can be your super personal assistant. And if LLMs can be your super personal assistant, your iPhone is suddenly no longer that important.

For example, need to plan and book a trip? Just tell your LLM to do it. It can even book tickets for you.

The flight is canceled and you're stranded? No problem. Ask your LLM to automatically call the flight company's customer service department to get a refund and check to see if their terms and service will provide a hotel for you. If so, have the LLM book a hotel.

None of this requires anything other than a screen, an internet connection, and your LLM personal assistant. You don't need to juggle different apps to do this. Just tell your LLM what you want. Therefore, it doesn't matter if you're using an iPhone or a $50 junk phone.

 

[cluster2600]

This will be great!

 

[Eldaerenth Faexidor]

“AI is apparently "absolutely critical" to Apple, with Cook confirming that Apple has been investigating generative AI "for years."

Lmao! We all know that Tim totally missed the boat on generative AI.

 

[ghanwani]

AI is the biggest threat to Apple's entire ecosystem.

GPT4 is demonstrating that an LLM can be your super personal assistant. And if LLMs can be your super personal assistant, your iPhone is suddenly no longer that important.

For example, need to plan and book a trip? Just tell your LLM to do it. It can even book tickets for you.

The flight is canceled and you're stranded? No problem. Ask your LLM to automatically call the flight company's customer service department to get a refund and check to see if their terms and service will provide a hotel for you. If so, have the LLM book a hotel.

None of this requires anything other than a screen, an internet connection, and your LLM personal assistant. You don't need to juggle different apps to do this. Just tell your LLM what you want. Therefore, it doesn't matter if you're using an iPhone or a $50 junk phone.

Yeah except that instead of booking the hotel in London, Kentucky it’ll book a hotel in the UK and then you’ll be stuck with paying for it because it’s too late to cancel. Not sure which world you’re living in. The one where I live, big tech cannot even get spam filtering right.

The AI bust, just like the AI boom, is gonna be epic.

 

[haruhiko]

AI is the biggest threat to Apple's entire ecosystem.

GPT4 is demonstrating that an LLM can be your super personal assistant. And if LLMs can be your super personal assistant, your iPhone is suddenly no longer that important.

For example, need to plan and book a trip? Just tell your LLM to do it. It can even book tickets for you.

The flight is canceled and you're stranded? No problem. Ask your LLM to automatically call the flight company's customer service department to get a refund and check to see if their terms and service will provide a hotel for you. If so, have the LLM book a hotel.

None of this requires anything other than a screen, an internet connection, and your LLM personal assistant. You don't need to juggle different apps to do this. Just tell your LLM what you want. Therefore, it doesn't matter if you're using an iPhone or a $50 junk phone.

Not yet with the recently deteriorating quality of the answers.

 

[senttoschool]

Not yet with the recently deteriorating quality of the answers.

Sure. It's still amazing. I throw a very technical document at it, ask it complicated questions, and GPT4 gets it right every time.

Maybe it isn't GPT4, maybe GPT5, or GPT6 or another company that will succeed at providing a super assistant.

Bottom line is, AI is a huge threat to Apple.

 

[senttoschool]

Yeah except that instead of booking the hotel in London, Kentucky it’ll book a hotel in the UK and then you’ll be stuck with paying for it because it’s too late to cancel. Not sure which world you’re living in. The one where I live, big tech cannot even get spam filtering right.

The AI bust, just like the AI boom, is gonna be epic.

It's going to ask you to confirm everything before booking.

Also, if you're going to ask it to book a trip to London, any decent AI would ask you to clarify if it's London UK or London Kentucky or where ever other Londons exist. Heck, as a rational human being, you should know that most humans would even assume that you meant London, UK. Therefore, if you're really going to London, Kentucky, you'd most certainly say so explicitly.

 

[ghanwani]

It's going to ask you to confirm everything before booking.

Also, if you're going to ask it to book a trip to London, any decent AI would ask you to clarify if it's London UK or London Kentucky or where ever other Londos exist.

Great so I’ll spend an hour trying to get it to do the right thing and the do it myself just like I manually move my good email from spam to inbox.

 

[bobmans]

Sure. It's still amazing. I throw a very technical document at it, ask it complicated questions, and GPT4 gets it right every time.

Maybe it isn't GPT4, maybe GPT5, or GPT6 or another company that will succeed at providing a super assistant.

Bottom line is, AI is a huge threat to Apple.

"AI" in the form of LLM's aren't a huge threat to any company that has money. Everyone with enough money to purchase 10's of thousands of A100/H100 from Nvidia can easily catch up and create the next LLM that beats all the current ones.

Also, not a single company is going to release a LLM assistant like there's Google Assistant / Siri / Bixi. It's way too expensive to operate.

 

[coffeemilktea]

Maybe with all these new servers, Siri can finally give answers to simple questions instead of giving me error messages

 

[ghanwani]

Sure. It's still amazing. I throw a very technical document at it, ask it complicated questions, and GPT4 gets it right every time.

Maybe it isn't GPT4, maybe GPT5, or GPT6 or another company that will succeed at providing a super assistant.

Bottom line is, AI is a huge threat to Apple.

You’re assuming it’s actually possible to improve.

 

[senttoschool]

You’re assuming it’s actually possible to improve.

That's right. I'm assuming that.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

AI is the biggest threat to Apple's entire ecosystem.

GPT4 is demonstrating that an LLM can be your super personal assistant. And if LLMs can be your super personal assistant, your iPhone is suddenly no longer that important.

For example, need to plan and book a trip? Just tell your LLM to do it. It can even book tickets for you.

The flight is canceled and you're stranded? No problem. Ask your LLM to automatically call the flight company's customer service department to get a refund and check to see if their terms and service will provide a hotel for you. If so, have the LLM book a hotel.

None of this requires anything other than a screen, an internet connection, and your LLM personal assistant. You don't need to juggle different apps to do this. Just tell your LLM what you want. Therefore, it doesn't matter if you're using an iPhone or a $50 junk phone.

Sure and hackers will have no problem hijacking the hardware and your life on a $50 phone. I would never ever venture out of the Apple Walled Garden and even better the future “Apple GPT Walled Garden”

 

[senttoschool]

Great so I’ll spend an hour trying to get it to do the right thing and the do it myself just like I manually move my good email from spam to inbox.

Some people don't have an ounce of imagination. They think that technology stands still and won't improve.

 

[senttoschool]

Sure and hackers will have no problem hijacking the hardware and your life on a $50 phone.

I'd argue that it's harder for a hacker to hijack a device that has a screen, internet connection, and an LLM than a very complicated device with many attack vectors.

 

[timber]

Everybody will have to rebrand those blockchain powered Apps into AI powered Apps

 

[senttoschool]

Everybody will have to rebrand those blockchain powered Apps into AI powered Apps

They're already doing that.

Unfortunately for these blockchain scams, you actually have to offer a service if you're an AI company.

 

[lkrupp]

AI is the biggest threat to Apple's entire ecosystem.

Not in the least bit. And claims of threats to Apple’s ecosystem are a dime a dozen. AI is simply the latest bugaboo for critics.

 

[senttoschool]

Not in the least bit. And claims of threats to Apple’s ecosystem are a dime a dozen. AI is simply the latest bugaboo for critics.

I'm an AAPL investor. I think about competitive threats to Apple all the time. AI is the single biggest threat. It might not come to fruition. But it's currently the biggest threat.

If a company ever creates an AI super assistant, watch out.

 

[lkrupp]

I'm an AAPL investor. I think about competitive threats to Apple all the time. AI is the single biggest threat. It might not come to fruition. But it's currently the biggest threat.

If a company ever creates an AI super assistant, watch out.

Yes, the classic “this time it’s different” response. You are welcome to your opinion, of course.

 

[ghanwani]

Some people don't have an ounce of imagination. They think that technology stands still and won't improve.

That’s right. I forgot that sometimes it actually gets worse.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Sure. It's still amazing. I throw a very technical document at it, ask it complicated questions, and GPT4 gets it right every time.

Maybe it isn't GPT4, maybe GPT5, or GPT6 or another company that will succeed at providing a super assistant.

Bottom line is, AI is a huge threat to Apple.

I'm in inpatient pharamcy and I've asked (GPT4) some specific questions here at work and it got over half the answers wrong, so don't totally trust it yet. I don't personally have much use for any digital assistant, GPT, Siri or otherwise.

Coincidentally, my employer (hospital) has now completely blocked all GPT-style LLM sites on the network.

 

[LogicalApex]

Sure. It's still amazing. I throw a very technical document at it, ask it complicated questions, and GPT4 gets it right every time.

Maybe it isn't GPT4, maybe GPT5, or GPT6 or another company that will succeed at providing a super assistant.

Bottom line is, AI is a huge threat to Apple.

It still gets a lot wrong for me. Even basic ones based on public ticker symbols.

ChatGPT is really cool, but it has a concerning failure rate and it does so with wording that makes it hard to notice unless you already know about the topic. That weakens its usefulness.

 

[sw1tcher]

AI is the biggest threat to Apple's entire ecosystem.

Apple's ecosystem is made up of their devices and services.

You'll still need a device to use A.I. and you're still going to buy an Apple Watch for its fitness and health tracking features.

How is A.I. going to replace an Apple sevice like Apple Pay, Card, Savings, iCloud, News, Music, TV+, etc.? Is A.I. going to make people consume less content (news, music, video, games)?

GPT4 is demonstrating that an LLM can be your super personal assistant. And if LLMs can be your super personal assistant, your iPhone is suddenly no longer that important.

You're telling me people will be using their iPhone less? People won't be browsing Facebook/Instagram, X (Twitter), TikTok, etc? People are going to be taking less pictures/videos and posting them online? People are going to give up being influencers and content creators? On the contrary, I think generative A.I. will see more people creating and editing content on their iPhones.