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Apple's Mac and iPad event, murder and the Apple Watch & more on the AppleInsider podcast

Apple Maps vehicle. photo: Victor Marks

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The AppleInsider Podcast gets into international intrigue, as we talk about murder, Apple Watch, and also, what we think Apple's going to announce at the next event.

AppleInsider editor Victor Marks and writer William Gallagher discuss:

  • Ming Chi Kuo is putting a flag in the ground: ARM Macintosh in 2020 or 2021, Apple ADAS for cars, 2023-2025.
  • The car doesn't seem out of the question? Apple has a patent application for using multiple staged voltage regulators to power a car from a single battery (as opposed to Tesla's approach, separate batteries for motor and infotainment / telematics.)
  • Facebook announces a smart video messaging device, and backpedals on privacy before the device even ships. Victor has whiplash from this.
  • Washington Post journalist Khashoggi's murder, and the audio said to be captured on Apple Watch. This is tragic, and Victor wants to know how the audio was recorded. (Victor apologizes for the mispronunciation of Khashoggi's name.)
  • Google pays a large fine and now has to extract license fees from handset makers for shipping Google Play and other Google apps. This is really due to the European Commission seeing it as an anti-trust issue of zero-rating. That is, it's unfair competition to provide Google Play for free, apparently.
  • Qualcomm and the FTC are requesting to delay summary judgement in hopes of settling. William and Victor speculate on different hypothetical situations where Qualcomm could be purchased by another company.
  • Apple's long-awaited event is on October 30!

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Following the Tim Cook tour and making do with Google's October Event while we wait for Apple's on the AppleInsider podcast



4 Comments

cgWerks 2947 comments · 8 Years

Note that it is speculation at this point about the capability of AI vehicles to reduce traffic fatalities.
There simply isn't enough data, and the view is based on some conjecture about what the future of AI holds.

vmarks 762 comments · 21 Years

cgWerks said:
Note that it is speculation at this point about the capability of AI vehicles to reduce traffic fatalities.
There simply isn't enough data, and the view is based on some conjecture about what the future of AI holds.

Yes. But also, AI doesn't road rage. It doesn't get inebriated and drive. It doesn't try and race through a red light. It doesn't make a hundred versions of selfish or careless human choices that result in a staggering number of deaths each year. While there isn't data I can readily cite, there is data, based on the large number of hours / miles that AI-driven cars have done on public roads already. This isn't some weak-crystal-ball-conjecture, this is a fair bet, if the AI isn't trained by sociopaths. Algorithms inherit the biases of their developers and trainers.

cgWerks 2947 comments · 8 Years

vmarks said:
Yes. But also, AI doesn't road rage. It doesn't get inebriated and drive. It doesn't try and race through a red light. It doesn't make a hundred versions of selfish or careless human choices that result in a staggering number of deaths each year. While there isn't data I can readily cite, there is data, based on the large number of hours / miles that AI-driven cars have done on public roads already. This isn't some weak-crystal-ball-conjecture, this is a fair bet, if the AI isn't trained by sociopaths. Algorithms inherit the biases of their developers and trainers.

Yes. But, the AI-related deaths so far weren't AI out in some kind of vendetta to kill their owners (or others). They were just mistakes. The questions is about how hard it will be to develop AI to the point of covering enough percentage of those mistakes.

And, as for all those bad human behaviors... I agree. But, if the true motivation for all of this were safety, then why not try harder to eliminate some of those drivers? We have hardly any comprehensive driver training, or re-checks. We give out pretty minimal penalties for such misbehavior. We're not really trying very hard on the human side if safety were the actual concern.