An empty chat box

I liked so much how Viticci has contextualized his review of the new iOS 18, focusing on the people behind the technology and not on AI. I fully share its perspective.

As a creative person who has poured his life into producing original content for the Internet, it’s very possible that I will never be a fan of generative AI tools that aim to replace human input and creativity. I do not owe the validity of this opinion to anyone. I have to be intellectually honest with myself: I don’t like where Apple is going with features like summarization of webpages, writing tools, ChatGPT integration in Siri, or – the worst offender of them all – AI-powered image generation.

[…] I’m utterly fascinated by and interested in people, whether it’s users finding novel ways to customize their Home Screens, indie developers who create powerful Shortcuts actions or Control Center widgets, or Apple engineers and designers who are responsible for Photos, Journal, Reminders, Notes, Health, Accessibility, and every other piece of software that makes me love writing about Apple software. People made those things with their skills and opinions; they intentionally sought to create something. […] Technology without people behind it is just an empty chat box.

I doubt that Apple did the right thing excluding, as a first step, AI features in the EU. I think that it was a coward choice, something else altogether that brave. He has preferred to ignore away a side of the world instead of to confront, although with prudence, a human-first regulation.

As with Viticci, I like the EU version of the new OS. Take control of our device, in terms of choice about design and apps, is worth more than features that I can already find out there — less or more privacy-focused as Apple promised for its unripe solution.

To have an AI on our personal devices, we can wait for the intelligence to ripen for a little while yet.