Apple shareholders vote down artificial intelligence transparency report

Apple shareholders on Wednesday rejected a proposal for the company to provide an annual artificial intelligence transparency report, including whether the company would be using the technology ethically.

Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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The proposal, submitted by AFL-CIO Equity Index Funds, was voted down in a preliminary tally at Apple’s annual meeting on Wednesday. Shareholders also rejected measures about equal employment policies, civil liberties, racial and gender pay gaps, and human rights. They approved the board slate and the company’s executive compensation plan.

The AI proposal urged Apple to disclose the ethical guidelines that it follows in adopting the technology. Artificial intelligence raises “a number of social policy issues,” according to the measure’s supporting statement. That includes whether it may result in biased decisions against employees or violate the privacy of customers. The statement also warned about the threat of layoffs stemming from automation.

Apple has been less open than tech peers about its plans for generative AI — the technology behind chatbots like ChatGPT — but it has promised to discuss its plans later this year. That presentation could come as soon as June, when the company holds its annual developers conference.

Behind the scenes, Apple has been racing to weave generative AI into its software. Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, has told his teams to develop as many new AI features as possible for this year’s operating system updates.

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MacDailyNews Take: If it can manage to train it’s generative AI in an unbiased way – a big IF – Apple will be just fine in generative AI soon enough. The company has an install base of more than 2.2 billion active devices in the hands of the highest quality customers; even “good enough” generative AI will be just fine. Anything above and beyond that will just be icing on the cake!

Until it gets another visionary leader (fingers crossed; Apple’s history has shown – cough, Sculley, Spindler, cough – that the next CEO could be far, far worse than the very competent caretaker Cook), Apple can afford to miss things like generative AI – which they clearly did – and then use its huge war chest to catch up – which they’re doing right now (fun times and 80-hour weeks inside Apple Park!) – and, hopefully, surpass rivals (or at least be as good). Apple will very likely unveil their catch-up work within months (this June at WWDC 2024) in iPhones (and iPads, Apple Watches, etc.) with built-in on-device generative AI and other new AI-driven features. – MacDailyNews, February 14, 2024
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