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If you spend enough time in your online content creation business, there’s a good chance you’ll eventually come to think of Google as something like Netflix’s alien race. 3 Physical problems: Highly evolved, parasitic, and an extremely formidable enemy that almost nothing or anyone can stop. In other words, no, unlike my colleague Chris Smith, I’m not jumping for joy at the prospect of his Apple-Google partnership bringing Google’s generative AI technology to his iPhone. there is no.
In fact, just the thought of such a partnership reminds me of my deep dislike for the iPhone maker, led by CEO Tim Cook. The company preaches values like privacy and security, and tends to behave like any other company when someone transfers cash. Apple’s face and local laws are telling Apple to do this and that. But I’ll go ahead and return to Gemini AI on the iPhone.
To be clear, such a partnership between Apple and Google is only rumored to be the subject of preliminary negotiations at this point. Apple is said to be considering putting Google Gemini on the iPhone, but this mainly makes up for the fact that it’s starting to look like Apple is also getting into the generative AI fray. As a method.
Finally, I would like to make one thing clear. It’s Wall Street, investors, and Silicon Valley that think Apple is behind the 8-ball when it comes to AI. But step out of your bubble and you know what you won’t find? Real people, real he iPhone users, insist that what they wish they had on their devices is generative AI models. It’s like no one uses Siri on their iPhone, at least where I live. Siri was definitely a great feature when Apple introduced it, but I’ve basically never touched it since then.
Moreover, a very nuanced understanding of the market is required here. The “world” itself is not moving towards AI. That’s not what’s happening at all. Rather, AI is being forced upon us whether we like it or not. That’s why I first reject the premise that Apple is lacking in any way with AI right now. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume it’s worth beefing up your iPhone in this regard.
Of all the companies, Google is the last company Apple should consider partnering with. So which Google is Apple going to team up with? Google, the monopoly that turned the open web into a garbage hellscape? Google has settled into generations of complacency in trading privacy for convenience. Are there companies whose legacy products are showing signs of age as the Googleplex becomes a relentlessly meritocracy-free zone?
CEO Sundar Pichai should be able to understand just what Google has done with its core search product, or even how much Google has allowed its search product to decline. . But there’s no chance in hell of that happening. In 2010, Matt Taibbi used the term to describe Goldman Sachs in a Rolling Stone article, but now it’s Google that is “wrapped in humanity’s face and smells like money.” A vampire squid that mercilessly thrusts its blood funnel into the blood. ”
Mr. Cook, for his part, did not hesitate to address the many sins of these companies. “We believe customers should be in control of their information,” Cook said in his 2015 speech. “You may like these so-called free services, but we don’t think they’re worth keeping your email or your information,” including your search history or even your family photo data. Is it being mined and sold for advertising purposes? And we believe that one day our customers will understand this for what it is. ”
Oh, but please give Apple about $18 billion to be the default search engine on the iPhone. Of course, no problem, Google. It’s yours. Oh, and having an ideologue spearhead an AI effort? Let’s talk, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Because even companies with market capitalizations of over $2 trillion cannot escape the seductive power of money.
This goes way beyond Google, by the way.
In recent days, Cook has been on another whistleblower tour of China, talking about how great the country is and how China continues to be an important market for Apple in particular. Never mind the fact that it is run by a totalitarian regime, has no free market, and is a strategic enemy of the United States, with artists and journalists imprisoned for independent thought.
Cook’s visit certainly contradicts the words of U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who said in public in 2023 that U.S. business leaders continue to say “China is uninvestable.” . The cost of doing business there is too high as a result of raids, fines, updates to China’s anti-espionage laws, and many other risks, not to mention China’s human rights abuses and totalitarian regime that demands huge compromises from doing business. . partner.
But apple have Otherwise, giving up benefits like cheap labor would result in higher iPhone prices. And you will have proven my point.
Because your values are not real values if you just follow them as long as it makes economic sense.
Apple recently developed a similar version in Russia. Before dying under mysterious circumstances in an Arctic penal colony, Alexei Navalny, a critic of President Vladimir Putin and dissident politician, developed an app to help people vote in the (now completed) Russian presidential election. was working on. In other words, it’s an app that helps people vote. That is in a way that counters the Kremlin’s lock on the foreseen outcome.
Navalny’s team finished its work after his death. Like clockwork, Russian censor Roskomnadzor demanded his Apple remove the app, which the iPhone maker apparently did. “This app was invented by Mr. Navalny before his tragic end and was designed to help him navigate the quagmire of ‘choices’ under Putin,” said a colleague of Mr. Navalny’s. Ivan Zhdanov wrote on X/Twitter. “By removing it, Apple is demonstrating its compliance in suppressing dissent and betraying those fighting for democracy.”
I get it. Apple is entering the market. Apple must comply with local laws and regulations. But consider this: When was the last time you heard good people protest, “We had to do it, we were just following orders”?
I admit that for some people, all this probably amounts to an overly simplistic view of the world. Still, I can’t help but feel like a company that once held a code of “Think Different” has quietly replaced it with another philosophy that’s just as simple and straightforward: “Keep getting paid.”
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