Hi! 👋 Welcome to The Big Y!
Apple hasn’t exactly been front and center with its AI, specifically GenAI, progress, but there are rumors they plan to announce something at their annual WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) in June. Let’s speculate a little bit…
We heard a rumor earlier this year that Apple could license Google’s Gemini to power some LLM features on the iPhone. This would be similar to how they license Google Search on their devices as well, skipping the development of their own search engine to use a best-in-class cloud-based service. We know that Apple is a device centric company and services do play an important role, but at the end of the day their devices are more important so it isn’t a stretch to believe they could rely on a cloud-based LLM service.
At the same time, I would expect Apple to be the one company that manages the magic of squeezing a functional LLM onto a phone that doesn’t need the support of a cloud service. A recent Apple research paper entitled Efficient Large Language Model Inference with Limited Memory tackles the challenge of efficiently running LLMs that exceed the available DRAM capacity by storing the model parameters in flash memory, but bringing them on demand to DRAM. While this is still a research paper, it could be a pointer to the future.
There is also news that they plan to release a new M4 chip that is designed to have special AI processing capabilities. A new AI focused chip alongside the Apple neural engine could open doors to exciting GenAI capabilities on Macs, but it will be interesting to see what the limitations of the AI processing capabilities might be. Improved AI-focused inference chips on personal computers could be a step forward to enabling LLM usage more seamlessly, but what model service will Apple push?
Nobody really knows how AI is going to affect jobs or how many jobs it will take away. But, this is an interesting interview with Mary Daly, CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of SF, diving into what she’s seeing and her take on the impact of GenAI on the labor market.
Know someone who might enjoy this newsletter? Share it with them and help spread the word!
Thanks for reading! Have a great week! 😁
🎙 The Big Y Podcast: Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Substack