Published in Mobiles

Apple tries to buy intelligence

by on08 September 2015


Running out of ideas

Desperate to find new ways to flog its iPhones in a dying market, fruity cargo cult Apple is turning to artificial intelligence.

Apple has ramped up its hiring of artificial intelligence experts, recruiting from PhD programs, posting dozens of job listings and greatly increasing the size of its AI staff.

The problem is that in this market Apple is far behind Google and Microsoft and hopes that 86 more employees with expertise in the branch of artificial intelligence known as machine learning will help out.

Machine learning, which helps devices infer from experience what users are likely to want next, relies on crunching vast troves of data to provide unprompted services.

One of Apple's more laudable traits is its refusal to take user data and store it on a cloud. To keep doing this Apple to do though is analyse the data on each user's iPhone. This is harder to set up.

That will not appear to work as well as digital assistants from Google and Microsoft. Cloud-based AI databases work fast and with more information.

In many ways it does not matter. If Apple comes up with anything that sniffs of AI, the Tame Apple Press will advertise it to death until the rest of the world thinks it is better. Whatever happens though, Jobs's Mob will have to come up with something fast.

Last modified on 08 September 2015
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