😱Lock away your iPhone!

👉 What the fact?!

Earlier this week the 2024 edition of Apple’s WWDC conference took place. During the conference, they announced a range of new features, with the native integration of AI into its devices taking center stage.

While the announcements have been met with a majority positive response (and stock prices surging 7%) one notable person remains skeptical; Elon Musk.

The OpenAI co-founder turned critic has stated that if Apple proceeds with the native OS-level integration of OpenAI into its devices, Musk will ban all iOS devices from his companies. In practice, this means any person entering the Tesla or SpaceX premises must check their iOS device at the entrance in a faraday cage to stop any potential wireless interference.

The allegations Elon Musk has made can be summarized in two parts:

• Privacy: Musk has long been a loud critic of OpenAI, accusing them of using a black box business model, and even selling out user data for profit.

• Inability to protect: While Apple has been thorough in emphasizing their focus on user privacy, Musk remains skeptical. He claims the company is incapable of creating privacy barriers good enough to protect user data.

🍎 Apple’s response

Despite these accusations, Apple stands firm in its stance on protecting user privacy and promises that:

• The core of AI processing will be done on-device and only larger requests requires cloud computing. These external requests will also go through the new Private Cloud Compute feature, ensuring data is not stored longer than needed for the specific request.

• Users will also be able to manually control when ChatGPT is used and will be asked before any of their data is shared.

Worth noting in all of this is that Elon Musk has long been a critic of OpenAI ever since he left as a co-founder of the company. Furthermore, after launching his startup xAI last year, he stands as a direct competitor to OpenAI.

🔥 Potential impact

As we see AI being integrated closer and closer into our everyday lives, it is important to remain in control of what information is shared. Instances like Reddit licensing their data for training AI rightfully poses the question of what we can do as users to protect our information.

Up until recently, sharing photos on Instagram, or engaging in conversations on Facebook, was relatively low risk. The biggest concern was having your data sold to advertisers. While that in itself is a conversation to be had, for-profit companies training AI models on data you shared for free can seem questionable.

Personalities like Elon Musk who is in the public eye have a massive opportunity (potentially even responsibility?) to shape the way AI will be intertwined with our lives.

While the criticism by Musk likely will mostly result in some headlines in media outlets, it can also spark a very valuable conversation.

Generally, the average user is not aware of how their data is used online, and if it is, how it affects them. Often times this is fine, however in the age of AI, it might actually be a requirement to deepen one’s knowledge.

So while critics of Musk may call his recent statements as nothing more than yet another tantrum, it’s a conversation that needs to happen.

👋 See you next Tuesday!

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