The AI Dilemma

this won't be the end.

Author

Brandon Butch
July 19, 2024 • 📖 Read time: 8 minutes

Welcome back! 🍎
Here’s the latest with Apple.

  • Apple’s AI dilemma

  • Apple tax-free savings

  • & more

📖 Read time: 3 minutes

📊 Poll

Last week, I asked: Have you purchased a Mac within the past 2 years?

Here are some of my favorite replies:

Yes - “I was torn about whether to upgrade from my M1 MBA, which is probably the best laptop I’ve ever used. But saying that, I did upgrade to the 15” M3 MBA and added 16GB RAM just to future proof myself and have it a little smoother for games in particular. General use is a lot faster too, but the M1 MBA was already such a hard laptop to beat.”

No - “My M1 is still a beast. It does what I need for producing music, light video editing and doing some light work in spreadsheets and documents. I will not replace this machine until it cannot keep up with my workload - which at this point seems far in the future.”

This week: Now that the iOS 18 Public Beta is out, are you running the Beta, or are you waiting for the final release in September? Why or why not?

Are You Running the iOS 18 Beta?

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🗞️ The Latest

 🫣 Apple’s Controversial AI Dilemma

MacRumors

Apple made headlines this week for something that could’ve been detrimental to Apple Intelligence. Here are the details.

  • An investigation found that subtitles from 173,536 YouTube videos were used for AI training by Apple, Nvidia, Anthropic, and Salesforce.

  • The companies trained their models by using The Pile, a collection by EleutherAI that also includes books, Wikipedia articles, and much more.

  • The Pile has been involved in multiple lawsuits over the years but the defendants claim that this kind of scraping is fair use. And those lawsuits were never resolved.

  • A tool has been created to reveal the channels & videos being sourced for training data.

Here’s the Catch

Many publications rushed to put out clickbait articles about how Apple is “stealing” from creators with Apple Intelligence. But that’s not the case, here’s why.

  • Apple was never collecting the data in the first place. They utilized “the Pile” and openly stated so in their OpenELM paper in April.

  • However, Apple confirmed that the OpenELM model is not being used to power Apple Intelligence or any of its Machine Learning features. It was only created for research purposes, just like dozens of other models they published.

  • Apple also confirms that they have no plans to build a new version of OpenELM in the future.

My take: I saw a lot of hate going towards Apple this week without understanding what’s going on here. Just check Marques’ IG post.

Apple simply utilized a 3rd party dataset and plugged it into a research-only AI model that they never planned on using to power Apple Intelligence. Crisis averted. Not a big deal whatsoever.

However, we can’t say the same for the other companies mentioned, as they might’ve utilized “the Pile” in their primary models that customers see and pull data from. And in that case, that’s a problem.

💻 Tax-Free Apple Products

Apple

The annual tax-free holiday is kicking off soon and Apple has detailed exactly what products are eligible for tax exemption in select states in the United States.

  • The sales tax holiday goes from July 19 - August 11 (based on state) and applies to both in-store and online purchases.

  • The included states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

  • Products supported vary state by state. In Arkansas, you can buy the $3500 Apple Vision Pro tax-free for a $220 savings. Or an $8500 Mac Pro for a savings of $550!

  • But if you’re in Florida, you only get tax exemption from Macs or iPads up to $1,500. You can see the specifics here.

My take: If you’ve been waiting to pick up a new Apple product, now is a great time to do so if you live in one of these states!

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