We are in the midst of an artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence, or "AI," is the ability for a computer to think and learn. With AI, computers can perform tasks that are typically done by people, including processing language, problem-solving, and learning. explosion. ChatGPTAn Artificial Intelligence chatbot released in November 2022. has become a sensation. Google and Microsoft have invested billions in their own AI platforms.¹ Yet one tech giant has been curiously quiet: Apple.²

No longer. Earlier this month, Apple CEOThe Chief Executive Officer is the highest ranking person in a company. They are responsible for making decisions about the company's future. Tim Cook unveiled Apple Intelligence: a new AI programme that will live inside the next generation of iPhones.

Bombarded by TikTok notifications? Apple Intelligence will put the important ones on top. Too many messages on your group chat? Apple Intelligence will distil them into a neat summary. Unsure how to tell a friend you cannot see them? Apple Intelligence can find the perfect apologetic tone.

Commentators are frothing with excitement. The Washington Post's Josh Tyrangiel describes Apple Intelligence as "the first rational theory of AI for the massesOrdinary people. ".It also might save Apple's finances.³

Most generativeHas the power to create or produce. AI programmes require input from a user. But Apple Intelligence will be fully integrated into a phone. It will provide suggestions based on what it learns about you from your contacts, calendar, messages, browsing habits and other shreds of data.

It will knit more closely into our lives than any AI before. As Cook says: "It has to understand you and be grounded in your personal context, like your routine, your relationships, and more".

This might be a turning point in our relationship with AI. As Kyle Chayka writes in The New Yorker: "AI is entering our personal lives, and once it's there it's not likely to retreat." 

Whether this is a good thing is up for debate. "We will rapidly enter a world," continues Chayka," in which we don't know whether a text message was written by the person sending it or by Apple Intelligence". Phones will choose what we see, read and hear. They will shape how we remember things. This could take away our autonomyThe right to make your own decisions. and sense of self.

Some worry about security. Apple claims that its software will be perfectly safe. The data is stored in the phone itself rather than on the cloud, adding some protection to user's data.

But Apple has struck a deal with OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. When a user has a problem too complex for Apple Intelligence, it will be sent to ChatGPT.⁴ Data will be sent to another company. Elon MuskA South African-born entrepreneur whose companies have included the online payment service PayPal. He now controls Twitter, renamed 'X'. says: "Apple has no clue what's actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI."

Apple responded that there will be safeguards. Data sent to the cloudEssentially, "the cloud" is another way to refer to the internet. Cloud computing involves storing your documents online and/or syncing them with other information on the internet. will be encryptedProtecting private information by writing it in code. . Users will be able to decide whether to use ChatGPT or not. But there might be other hazards down the line.⁵

Others warn that AI poses an even bigger threat. Earlier this month, nine current and former Open AI employees spoke out. They claimed the company was chasing profit over safety in a "reckless race". AI engineers have begun talking of p(doom): the probability that an AI will go rogue and destroy humanity.

Yet defenders say these threats are exaggerated. Why would an AI gain the desire or ability to kill us? It can always be switched off.

Will it make our lives better?

Yes: Life is full of irritating tasks. The more of these that AI can do for us, the more time we will have to live for ourselves. It is no different from any other tool, just at a more advanced scale.

No: Humans thrive by solving problems and evolving to face new challenges. AI will take care of all that for us, doing the hard work while serving us unchallenging content. We might devolve as a result.

Or... Apple Intelligence will only be available in the newest, most expensive iPhones. Most people will have to wait years to use it - by which point something else will have come along.