Apple & EU AI ‘Brexit benefit?’

[Buzby]

With the news from Apple that their new range of phones will be AI capable BUT this will be disabled for those in the EU - will we finally get a Brexit benefit? Clearly the UK is not in the EU so (one would assume) that phones supplied here would not be restricted in this way as we’re not an EU country, however a visit to the Apple Shop brought a non-committal reply… they cannot comment on features ‘yet to be introduced’ notwithstanding it was Apple who stated at WWDC that equipment shipped to the EU would not have AI.

Is this a ‘hooray for us’ revelation, or will Apple just lump us in with the EU marketplace and we we lose out?

 

[Snow1964]

Very few International companies want to make different specs just for UK, when they can make standard spec for Europe.

If they do, there is often a price supplement compared to pan EU price in euros.

 

[TheSmiths82]

I would have thought the reason they can't enable it in the EU is due to privacy concerns. I frankly trust the EU more than the UK in this regard despite much of the EU data protection laws coming from the UK in the first place. As I understand it UK data centres have to pretty much comply with EU GDPR rules anyway otherwise they will loose a lot of business.

 

[SynthD]

It will initially only be available in US English. Abandoning the gdpr, and not replacing it with something else consumer friendly, was going to be part of that bonfire of red tape that never happened. As we thankfully still have the data protection act, we may not get this service.

 

[Noddy]

With the news from Apple that their new range of phones will be AI capable BUT this will be disabled for those in the EU - will we finally get a Brexit benefit? Clearly the UK is not in the EU so (one would assume) that phones supplied here would not be restricted in this way as we’re not an EU country, however a visit to the Apple Shop brought a non-committal reply… they cannot comment on features ‘yet to be introduced’ notwithstanding it was Apple who stated at WWDC that equipment shipped to the EU would not have AI.

Is this a ‘hooray for us’ revelation, or will Apple just lump us in with the EU marketplace and we we lose out?

I doubt it. Part of the UK is still in the EU market, and I doubt it would be easy to split into sub-national jurisdictions.

 

[ValentaFan1974]

Well, sideloading apps aren’t available to us in the UK like they are in the EU so I don’t see why it’s not possible to have AI on the UK variants - after all it’s just a software upgrade is it not?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Very few International companies want to make different specs just for UK, when they can make standard spec for Europe.

Well it's totally speculative at the moment, but it might not be a different spec just for the UK. Presumably countries like the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand will be getting English-language AI-capable phones, so - depending on what other differences they might want for the UK - it might be possible that we get a variant of the phones being made for those countries. There are also several other countries in Europe that are not in the EU (although none of them English-speaking).

And surely it can't be one single standard spec for the whole of Europe because the languages will have to be different for each country anyway.

 

[edwin_m]

Somewhere in the iPhone settings there is one to choose the preferred language and add an extra language, for which a very long list is available. So I don't think the different languages are different versions of the product, just shipped with different settings. I guess the AI may only be fluent in a limited number.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Somewhere in the iPhone settings there is one to choose the preferred language and add an extra language, for which a very long list is available. So I don't think the different languages are different versions of the product, just shipped with different settings. I guess the AI may only be fluent in a limited number.

That makes sense. But by the same argument, whether the AI is enabled could also simply be a setting rather than a different version of the product - albeit a setting that is controlled partly by Apple.

 

[lewesroad]

Is AI really a benefit? I‘d be happy to be in the EU and not have to go to the trouble of turning it off.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Is AI really a benefit? I‘d be happy to be in the EU and not have to go to the trouble of turning it off.

Depends how good it is and what it gets used for - so that's unanswerable until people have started using the AI-enabled phones. But technology usually has benefits. And it means people have the choice. I think you could argue that the likely benefits for the people who want to use it will probably outweigh the minute or so of disbenefit it will take people who don't want it to switch it off.

 

[dosxuk]

AI enabled phones are already out there. Samsung are currently running an advert about spotting a dog lamp on TV and being able to take a photo and use Google's AI to find it.

By far the bigger problem with AI is that the tech industry has bet billions on it being useful, but are currently struggling to find anything that normal people want to pay for.

 

[nw1]

With the news from Apple that their new range of phones will be AI capable BUT this will be disabled for those in the EU - will we finally get a Brexit benefit? Clearly the UK is not in the EU so (one would assume) that phones supplied here would not be restricted in this way as we’re not an EU country, however a visit to the Apple Shop brought a non-committal reply… they cannot comment on features ‘yet to be introduced’ notwithstanding it was Apple who stated at WWDC that equipment shipped to the EU would not have AI.

Is this a ‘hooray for us’ revelation, or will Apple just lump us in with the EU marketplace and we we lose out?

Some might consider that a disadvantage as the EU regulation is presumably designed to address privacy concerns.

I think on these kind of matters, though, we align with the EU. I can't remember what it was, but there was some AI feature I saw recently which was listed as available in various countries, and the UK and other European countries were excluded. Places like Albania and Serbia were also excluded, so presumably they also align with the EU here.

I would have thought the reason they can't enable it in the EU is due to privacy concerns. I frankly trust the EU more than the UK in this regard despite much of the EU data protection laws coming from the UK in the first place. As I understand it UK data centres have to pretty much comply with EU GDPR rules anyway otherwise they will loose a lot of business.

Indeed, just one reason why I consider "Lexiters" naive in the extreme. They complain about the capitalist EU, yet by abandoning EU legislation - which thankfully we appear not to be doing here - leaves us much more open to more insidious forms of capitalism.

 

[Dent]

I think you could argue that the likely benefits for the people who want to use it will probably outweigh the minute or so of disbenefit it will take people who don't want it to switch it off.

Are your certain that there will always be an easily accessible and well documented option to completely and permanently disable it, which will only take a "minute or so" for any untrained user?

Apple are not exactly known for easy customisation options, particularly not for options to completely and permanently remove headline features they are trying to promote.

 

[Nym]

I’m still puzzled as to how one would see the addition of more “AI” a benifit?

 

[Buzby]

I’m still puzzled as to how one would see the addition of more “AI” a benifit?

It’s a matter of choice. If your phone has the capability to run it, but you are told because of legislation that is not relevant to the country/market you reside you are being discriminated against. Of course, if you try it and is sucks, you’ll want to remove it but you have been given the choice, which I applaud.

 

[Dent]

It’s a matter of choice. If your phone has the capability to run it, but you are told because of legislation that is not relevant to the country/market you reside you are being discriminated against. Of course, if you try it and is sucks, you’ll want to remove it but you have been given the choice, which I applaud.

How do you know it will always be a choice? Apple are not exactly known for giving users the ability to easily, completely and permanently remove features.

Before your start applauding this "benefit" you need to consider why this is being disabled in the EU.

 

[jon0844]

Given the recent fuss over Adobe wanting access to content creators' content (but they quickly backtracked) and the likes of Amazon, Google and presumably Apple wanting access to your contact, messages and more to 'learn' both for helping you, and also to train their AI models for other people, including the small print saying that real people may have access to your messages, photos etc, I think a lot of people have every right to be concerned.

AI is a bit of a con. For one, many AI features are just rebranded features that already existed, like searching for a photo at a beach or with certain text (Google Photos has done that for years). My phone has AI features to suggest apps and services, but it did before as 'recents'. A simple change of text and, hey, AI!

Bear in mind also that chipsets have had NPUs for machine learning since 2018? More recently AI has been pushed to the forefront and manufacturers are now seeking to launch AI services that would (and do) work fine on older chipsets, but have opted to block out older SoCs simply because it means people will have to upgrade.

Google recently got called out for saying older Pixel phones couldn't work, then they admitted they would... and many PC manufacturers are being called out by people working in tech. Yes, the newer chips have more processing power but it doesn't mean older hardware won't work. Perhaps a bit slower for onboard stuff, but so much is done in the cloud anyway.

 

[Buzby]

Before your start applauding this "benefit" you need to consider why this is being disabled in the EU.

Just because some entity decides it doesn’t like something is no reason for me to support it - especially when I was dragged out of said entity despite my wishing to remain. So because I’ve been forced onto the other side of the fence, I want to experience what the fuss is all about - especially since there will be more territories able to experience it than not.

Much of AI is a con - some of it works and some is nonsensical. I only want the benefit of my own experience to make my mind up, not have it imposed on me by an organisation that no longer represents my interests.

 

[Dent]

Just because some entity decides it doesn’t like something is no reason for me to support it

Where did I claim that some entity deciding they don't like something was a reason to support it?

I only want the benefit of my own experience to make my mind up, not have it imposed on me by an organisation that no longer represents my interests.

You still havent answered the question of how do you know that you actually will always have the ability to make your own mind up. Have Apple given a guarantee that there will always be an easily accessible option to completely and permanently disable all AI features?

 

[jon0844]

Much of AI is a con - some of it works and some is nonsensical. I only want the benefit of my own experience to make my mind up, not have it imposed on me by an organisation that no longer represents my interests.

I'd go as far as to say most. It's the current buzzword and it's making a LOT of people VERY rich. We have the usual tech bros offering AI solutions that are very much 'fake it until you make it' (heck, even Amazon was using people in India to work out customer bills in their Fresh stores for at least a third, perhaps more, of transactions), but now every electronics manufacturer has to introduce AI into their roadmap. And there are loads of investors who will throw money at anything with the word AI, which is obviously why they do it.

So much of what is called AI isn't anyway. There are some use cases where AI sounds quite interesting, but then we mostly have engines that create text and images based on 'stolen' content. (I use quotes because most people likely gave permission for their data to be used, but didn't understand what they were doing).

We also need to hope that we don't get to be like the USA, where LG was recently found to be opting people into sharing data by default, and increasingly companies are changing terms of service and forcing customers to agree to new terms or lose access to something they actually bought and own. Louis Rossman has done many good videos on this, which highlights the fact that if you buy a product but need to login or use the cloud in any way, they can withdraw your service at any time and turn your product into a brick. Thankfully, it seems the EU restricts a lot of this with consumer protections, and I hope the UK sticks with it - especially as we played such a big part in the EU consumer protection laws in the first place.

 

[Fragezeichnen]

I’m still puzzled as to how one would see the addition of more “AI” a benifit?

One example would be automatic language translation. AI language translation produces significantly better results that algorithmic techniques. It's unrealistic to expect every website and video to be translated into enough languages that everyone who wants to read it can, so no-one is being harmed by the automatic translation. The alternative it most cases would be no translation.

AI can also produce transcripts of spoken text better than previous techniques. This is of benefit to the hard of hearing, or as input for automatic translation. Again, to manually transcribe all spoken text in every podcast and video is not realistic.