It seems like everyone but Apple is jumping on the AI bandwagon, but that may not be for very long, according to the report. As 9to5Mac learned in the tvOS 16.4 beta, Apple is testing next-gen AI capabilities for Siri. The technology, codenamed “Bobcat”, is currently very limited in scope, but may eventually expand to wider capabilities and devices.
A recent New York Times report explained that the original trio of AI assistants – Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa – are very limited in their capabilities and have been vastly outclassed by generative AI based on large language models like ChatGPT. The capabilities of ChatGPT have captured the imagination of the tech community and, together with generative AI such as Midjourney, Dall-E, and Stable Diffusion, have inspired a kind of gold rush for generative AI. The New York Times mentioned that, according to its sources, “many engineers, including members of the Siri team, test language-generating concepts every week.”
It now appears that 9to5Mac has discovered that Apple has included a new framework for “Natural Language Generation Siri” in the latest tvOS 16.4 beta.
You shouldn’t expect this new “Bobcat” language generation AI to necessarily be anything like ChatGPT, but it’s more likely to be a way to extend Siri’s capabilities. Currently, the technology is reportedly only activated when asked by Siri to tell jokes on Apple TV with the latest tvOS 16.4 beta, but the report claims that “the company is also experimenting with how language generation can be used for timers.”
Is SiriGPT on the way?
It makes sense that Apple would be testing on tvOS — it’s a small, controlled platform compared to iOS or macOS, and the HomePod (which relies almost entirely on interacting with Siri) runs on sort of a modified version of tvOS. 9to5Mac says they’ve seen evidence that this code has been rolled out to iPhone, iPad, Mac, HomePod, and Apple TV, but only enabled on Apple TV and in a very limited fashion.
But don’t expect a chatbot like ChatGPT from Apple anytime soon. At least for now, Apple seems to be interested in using generative language AI technology to make Siri more natural and conversational, and perhaps allow it to gracefully give answers or perform tasks that don’t meet the narrowly prescribed conditions for which it is currently intended. programmed.
It’s reasonable to expect that, perhaps with the release of iOS 17 this fall, or one of its spot updates, Apple will tout a more natural and conversational Siri when performing certain tasks (we don’t think Apple is going to stop at the jokes). tells). These capabilities are likely to expand as Apple works to make its chat model secure and convenient for people of all ages and walks of life, which has been a problem for models like ChatGPT so far.