The Hated One

Do Not Trust Apple Intelligence

Added 2024-07-09 20:00:00 +0000 UTC

Apple Intelligence is artificial intelligence, but private. Because Apple is a privacy company, unlike the rest of the big tech, of course. Or maybe it’s all just marketing bull*hit. I don’t know. Pick one. [0]

I can’t believe that Apple is doing it again and gets away with it. Every single keynote, Apple introduces a new set of features that had already existed elsewhere for a while, but somehow, what Apple is doing is different. And I never see any backlash, until months or years later researchers discover Apple is actually full of shit.

It’s the same playbook they’ve been doing for decades. This time, Apple is late to the artificial intelligence hype, so they come up with something new – not artificial intelligence, Apple Intelligence. It’s AI that preserves your privacy. AI which wouldn’t be possible without mass surveillance and bulk collection of everyone’s data. But Apple is a privacy company.

Let me unfold this Apple’s playbook for you so that we are on the same page. Take this for example. Apple has never had a search engine. And instead of building one, they decided to charge Google up to $20 billion annually for 21 fudging years, to set Google as the default search engine on everybody’s devices. Everyone wins – Apple gets the money, Google gets the user data, user gets 13 ads shoved down their throat every single goddamn search. But Apple is a privacy company. [2 – 4]

Or take it to 2018. Mark Zuckerberg’s lifeless body is being dragged through the streets for their privacy scandals. And Tim Cook proudly and confidently steps in and spits on Zuck’s corpse. All the while Apple and Facebook had a secret deal to retrieve Facebook user information behind closed doors, even if Facebook users would deny those permissions! But Apple is a privacy company! [5]

But now it’s the AI time. Apple isn’t confident enough with their own LLMs, so they seamlessly integrate ChatGPT into Siri and the new Writing Tools. That data will, of course, be processed by OpenAI, but Apple will remain a privacy company. [6]

Do you get the picture? Things are never so simple with Apple. To an untrained eye, Apple Intelligence looks like something that has never been done before. But if you squint your eyes just right, you might find something that seems eerily like it [Android System Intelligence]. It even comes this privacy thing, called Apple Private Cloud Compute, I mean, Android Private Compute Core. [7]

What Apple is being venerated for right now, Google has been doing since Android 12, all the way back to Pixel 6. [8 – 10]

Contrary to common misconception, Google has taken all of data processing offline. Many of the smart things you see happening on your Android phone are designed for your privacy. [11, 12, 7]

They either happen on device, where your data never leaves your phone, or Google introduces techniques such as differential privacy, that introduce noise sufficient enough to make it impossible to discern data belonging to individuals. And in fact, Google has released much of this work open source, not just for audits and inspection, but for third party developers to deploy in their products. [9, 12 – 14]

But I don’t understand. I have never seen headlines praising Google as a bold privacy company and Android as a private alternative to the big tech data harvesting practices.

What is going on?

Allow me to shine a light on these things, please. And please, support me on Patreon. YouTube pays me roughly $30 in ad revenue for my videos. So get on with it, my work is free but my rent isn’t.

Am I seriously pitching Google as privacy company? Absolutely not. I want you to understand that most of Google’s surveillance is happening through Google Search and Google Ads. If you can get away from those, you are drastically better off.

The point that I am making is that privacy is not security. You need to be secure if you want to have digital privacy, but security is just one out of many pre-requisites you need for comprehensive privacy. Your most severe and immediate threats to privacy are not gonna come from security. [15]

They are gonna be linkability and identifiability. That is when you are tracked across different services, products and platforms. When you are forced to be identified with a persistent and real life identifier. When you give you real phone number, email address, IP address, your device serial number. When your usage data is collected and stored indefinitely. When companies share your data with their partners and providers in their own business interest. [16]

No security threat model is concerned with any of these things. The point you need to understand all of this, is that when Apple says they are protecting your privacy, what that really means in practice is security. Apple will still collect all of that data and will use it for monetization or improving of their services. [17, 18]

Now let me illustrate this for you with no room for misunderstanding. There are two ways Apple’s AI implementation is secure. One is when they use small locally running models, where the benefits are obvious as the data stays on the device. [19]

The second is Apple Private Cloud Compute, that kicks in whenever you interface with Apple’s cloud-based AI. [20]

Apple built this in a very similar manner to Android Private Compute Core. Both of these were built with custom hardware and custom operating system that was hardened for more security. For access to the private compute, both Android and Apple solutions strip identifiable information and use encryption to prevent access even by Google or Apple respectively. [13, 14, 21, 22]

These companies are trading blows in terms of how they design their security architecture. But the end product is a very comparable level of security.

But AI is expensive and how is Apple going to pay for this? It’s gonna be you. You will pay for this, by spending more time on their apps and services inside their own platform and Apple will have more real estate to show you ads on. If this is surprising news for you, Apple’s has been shifting its strategy to make more money from ads and services because hardware sales are falling. And this how they will make their shareholders happy.

Apple is changing its strategy and is banking more and more on its ability to exclusively target Apple users across all devices on its platform. And Apple Intelligence has been integrated deeply with the operating system whether you like or not. The more you use it, the more usage data you generate and the more lucrative Apple’s ad network becomes. [23 – 25]

Most of Apple Intelligence revolves around three core features: writing tools, image playground and Siri integration. Let’s take a few examples.

Apple Intelligence has been implemented into Apple Mail with Priority Messages and Smart Reply. Writing Tools that will help you rewrite emails, proofread grammar, summarize text, make better notes. What’s the benefit of all the private cloud compute security, when your emails are not end-to-end encrypted? Unless you can use this with an encrypted service like ProtonMail, there is no privacy benefit here. But as an Apple user, with this super convenient AI integration, you’ll be more inclined to stay with Apple’s services instead of switching to something more privacy preserving like Tuta or Proton that do not come with those AI features. Your app usage will generate enough metadata and contextual information that can be turned into monetized income for Apple. [1]

Take the Siri integration. Now enhanced with Apple Intelligence, Siri will use your on-device data to make better suggestions and be more personally customizable. But according Siri’s privacy policy, Apple is collecting tons of your usage data in and around Siri. Data like what music and podcasts you listen to, metadata from your photos, alarms and reminders, contacts and other data. And unless you changed your settings, your dictations and transcripts will also be sent to Apple. [26, 27]

Image generation is another excellent illustration of this strategy. It’s built into the system and it allows you to generate images in Apple Messages. Which are end-to-end encrypted, but Apple holds the decryption key on their servers, unless both you and your contacts have enabled Advanced Data Protection, which is disabled by default and breaks certain features in iOS. [28]

It would be great if Apple opened this up so that other apps could leverage this on-device AI. Like Signal, which is always end-to-end encrypted across all users at all times. Apple has that essential access to your social graph, because your metadata is not encrypted. So Apple knows who you talk to, how long, how often, where and when. And that’s what all advertisers and campaigners are after, because people are inclined to share interest in brands and products across relationships. [29]

I also don’t like the ChatGPT integration. Apple promises your IP address will be obscured and your requests won’t be stored by OpenAI. And we know nothing else about this deal. OpenAI is very explicit that they will collect and use every bit of user data, including the content of prompts and chats. But I want to know what permissions OpenAI is gonna have on users devices. Apple has never shared this information about any app in the past so it’s unlikely they’ll do so now. But I am surprised there is absolutely no pushback on this. Since this is a system-wide integration, I wouldn’t be surprised OpenAI was granted privileged access to user data, similar to the secret deal Apple had with Facebook. Your IP address and your request is just two data points. Two out of dozens you generate when you interact with a ChatGPT. This is data that must be transferred to ChatGPT in order to fulfill the request, which is why Apple covered its ass with a popup prompt to ask for your permission before any content is shared. But will users understand what information is shared with OpenAI from this simple popup? [1]

Understand what Apple Intelligence is about – it’s another tool designed to keep you locked in inside Apple’s platform. It’s not a privacy-preserving option. It’s a convenience tool. The integration across Apple apps and services is gonna be seamless and amazing, as always. But you will become an even greater target of Apple’s emerging advertising strategy. You literally cannot even use your phone without an AppleID. AppleID that is personally identifying you with your device serial number. Think about that next time you ask Siri for directions. If you seek a way out of this – it’s GrapheneOS.