Roger Fingas
Apple's intense levels of secrecy are preventing the company from making real leaps in the quality of its artificial intelligence, a report said on Thursday.
The company for example kept a low profile at last year's Neural Information Processing Systems conference, to the extent that its representatives wouldn't admit who they worked for unless asked, Bloomberg observed. The company has also produced zero AI research papers so far, even though researchers at rivals like Google submit them on a regular basis.
People on the company's AI teams are told to lock their offices whenever they leave, and are kept in the dark about what similar internal teams are doing, sources said.
Secrecy may also reportedly be scaring away potential hires, who could be worried about factors like work freedom and the ability to stay involved in the scientific community. Without the ability to publish papers, it can be difficult to maintain status in the research world and build on ideas.
Google in fact has a new residency program dedicated to AI research and publication, geared to draw in yet more experts.
Apple is at least hiring dozens of new people for AI-related work, and acquiring companies like Perceptio and VocalIQ. Rumors from AI researchers suggest that Apple may soon finally publish a research paper, but nothing else is known.
AI is quickly becoming essential to Apple. Its Siri voice assistant is found across iOS devices and the Apple TV, and work is believed to be underway on self-driving car technology. The latter will require synthesizing various branches of AI with absolute attention to detail, since mistakes could result in injuries or even death.
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60 Comments
Wasn't there a story here about this several days ago? Maybe I read about somewhere else. Dunno.
The Bloomberg article claims Apple's secrecy "hurts" it's AI software development but then presents mere opinions to back that up. There's no evidence presented that proves that any AI endeavors have been harmed by secrecy. So it's an editorial, not "news."
Honesty, this is nothing new for Apple, it was not unusally for Apple employees to got to trade shows and conference registered as working for another company to fake companies. The reason this is an issue is the fact that most people in AI were stuck in some university for all these years since no one would hire them since they did not really know what to do with it. They are so use to taking other peoples ideas and running with them or sharing their ideas since they could not figure out what to do next. Now they being told not to share anymore and they do not know how to function.
If the work is secret, how can it be known if Apple's own progress is being hampered because of the secrecy?
The Bloomberg article claims Apple's secrecy "hurts" it's AI software development but then presents mere opinions to back that up. There's no evidence presented that proves that any AI endeavors have been harmed by secrecy.
So it's an editorial, not "news."
Any scientist will tell you that science does not exist in a vacuum. What do scientists do to get ideas? They read papers. What do they do when they're done? They publish papers. Isaac Newton knew this 340 years ago with the "standing on the shoulders of giants"
Even scientists who work on classified research publish and share ideas. The government sponsors classified journals and conferences.
Unlike your comment, the Bloomberg article relies on common sense to those in the field.