Thanks to House Atreides for the heads up!
Apple Acquisition and Siri
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Posted on 10/05/2015 4:35:40 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Apple has purchased Perceptio, a small startup focused on artificial intelligence, reports Bloomberg. Founded by Nicolas Pinto and Zak Stone, Perceptio was developing technology that would let smartphone companies create advanced artificial intelligence systems "without needing to share as much user data" in the cloud.
Perceptio's goals were to develop techniques to run AI image-classification systems on smartphones, without having to draw from large external repositories of data. That fits Apple's strategy of trying to minimize its usage of customer data and do as much processing as possible on the device.According to Bloomberg, both Stone and Pinto are established artificial intelligence researchers who specialize in creating image-recognition systems using deep learning. There's little information available about Perceptio, but Re/code profiled the company last year.
The duo were working on privacy-based artificial intelligence, figuring out how to run complex neural network algorithms on smartphones. Before being acquired by Apple, they were working on facial recognition technology and had released an unrelated video sharing app called Smoothie.
Apple confirmed the purchase with its standard acquisition statement: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
Apple's Siri personal assistant has lagged behind competing services like Google Now and Microsoft Cortana because of Apple's strict privacy policies and its reluctance to collect and utilize user data. It's possible the purchase of Perceptio will allow Apple to improve Siri without compromising on its dedication to user privacy.
Perceptio is the second Siri-related purchase Apple has made within the last few weeks. Apple also recently acquired VocalIQ, a UK-based startup that created a natural language API to allow computers and people to have a more natural dialogue.
Thanks to House Atreides for the heads up!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Would this technology enable Siri (and other voice input) to respond quicker because it doesn’t have to check in with Apple’s servers in the cloud for complex phrases or unfamiliar words?
Frankly, I don't know. . . but that is the implication. The statement apparently is that by using A.I. on the local iOS device, the need for anything to be sent to iCloud would be minimized, maximizing user privacy by lowering user exposure over the web and on any ISP in-between the device and the server as well as any potential for server compromise despite Apple's encryption guarantees.
It is my understanding that Siri's queries are not customer-privacy level encrypted because they do need parsing for content and to provide answers, and for building the answer database, so they are only Apple level encrypted, which is still 256 bit AES encryption, but both the device and Apple hold this key so that Apple can decrypt it and return a Siri response, yet still keep the user reasonably secure. Were it user-level encrypted, Apple could not decrypt the query at the Siri server for lack of a key, and the user would not get an answer.
This is one of the few things transmitted from individual Apple devices that Apple could conceivably be required to hand over in a search warrant and be required to reveal, because they DO, Indeed have the key to these data for individual devices, if they keep it. My understanding is that Siri data is anonymized when kept for the purpose of increasing the Siri database's ability to respond. However, I suspect it would NOT be a good idea to ask Siri questions such as "Where is the best place to bury the body of John Doe?" or "What's the best poison for killing my wife?" or "Where can I buy a fully automatic weapon on the black market?" Nope, just not a good idea.
Memo to Self... :-)
"Hey Siri, is half a grand a good price for a pound of Panamanian?"
Not only is that not a good idea, I'm showing my age...
If they bought it, there’s a future in it.
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