Apple in talks with Tencent, ByteDance to roll out Apple Intelligence in China
Apple Intelligence on iPhone, Mac, and iPad.
Apple, the world’s most valuable company, is in talks with Tencent and TikTok owner ByteDance about integrating their artificial intelligence models into Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones, Macs, and iPads sold in China, Reuters reports citing “three sources familiar with the matter.”
Liam Mo and Brenda Goh for Reuters:
The U.S. company started the rollout of OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its devices this month, part of the Apple Intelligence product that allows its Siri voice assistant to tap the chatbot’s expertise including on user queries about photos and documents such as presentations.
ChatGPT is not available in China and the country’s regulatory requirements mandate that generative AI services obtain government approval before public release, forcing Apple to seek local partners for its AI features at a time when its market share in the country is declining.
Apple’s discussions with Tencent and ByteDance on using their AI models are at a very early stage, said the sources, who declined to be named as the talks are not public…
Apple and Baidu have reportedly been in talks about using the latter’s AI model in China, but The Information this month reported the discussions faced setbacks due to technical issues, including disputes over using iPhone user data to train AI models.
MacDailyNews Take: Regardless of which Chinese outfit strikes a deal with Apple for CCP-controlled LLMs, when it finally debuts in China, Apple Intelligence, like everything else in the country, will be compromised and markedly less useful due to the censorship of the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party.
“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.” – Potter Stewart
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