Tim Cook: Apple Intelligence may hallucinate, but has guardrails

CEO Tim Cook has admitted in an interview that Apple Intelligence may hallucinate, but says that its responses will be “very high quality.”

He also said that the company has not been willing to compromise on its values to move into AI, and that there are guardrails in place for its upcoming artificial intelligence features …

Cook sat down briefly with Washington Post columnist Josh Tyrangiel, who opened by asking what benefits Apple customers can expect.

I think they’re going to save time. Things are going to become more efficient. If you think about Siri as an example, you can now have a conversation with Siri. It can perform essentially multiple steps with one request, where today it takes multiple requests for that to occur. Writing tools: I get so many emails, and I realize everybody’s not on email, but everybody writes. And to have an assistant proofread to make things more professional or more entertaining, or whatever you want to do, is a big thing.

Tyrangiel asked whether adopting AI had put any of Apple’s values to the test.

Not tested it. We went into this saying, “These are our values, and we can’t veer from them.” And we took the time and the depth of thinking to come out with a product that we’re proud of.

Asked about AI hallucinations – where chatbots confidently deliver completely made-up facts – Cook admitted this was possible with its own implementation.

It’s not 100 percent. But I think we have done everything that we know to do, including thinking very deeply about the readiness of the technology in the areas that we’re using it in. So I am confident it will be very high quality. But I’d say in all honesty that’s short of 100 percent. I would never claim that it’s 100 percent.

He ducked a question about partnering with OpenAI, and whether he trusted the judgement of its CEO, Sam Altman, who has come under fire for allegedly dismissing employee concerns about AI safety.

We looked at everything and considered everything, and concluded that it was in the best interest of our users to select them.

He naturally pushed Apple’s privacy focus, and concluded that while there are always risks with AI systems, the company was being appropriately cautious.

I know that there’s also a parade of horribles that can occur, which is why we’re committed to being thoughtful in the space.

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