Thread

macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage

240 points · 123 comments · ano-ther

hbn · 1790009859 · focus · HN ↗
I'll say they definitely need to let people disable/offload the model, but if you haven't tried the new Siri, it's been great. Obviously it's not a state of the art LLM, but it's good enough, and the fact that it can search and take actions on your local data makes it incredibly useful. I definitely use it more on my iPhone where it's slower to get things done the traditional way, but I use it all the time now.
"What was the quote for my insurance claim?" - it'll look through your emails and pull the number with the source email so you can jump right to it.
The other day I asked "when did I arrive and leave Mexico City on my trip at the end of 2024?" and it nailed it based off my flight receipt.
Since learning Spanish I get a lot more Spanish stuff in my feeds, and if I e.g. don't understand a meme I'll just ask "explain the joke here" and it reads the screen and explains it.
You can have an article open in Safari and say "remind me to read this tonight" and it'll make a reminder with the link. Or you can modify reminders - "move my reminder to get groceries to tomorrow at the same time". Yesterday I told it to make me a reminder and it did, but I worded it in a clunky way so I followed it with "reword that to sound more natural" and it did it.
We've been trained for a long time to think Siri can't do anything but I urge you to try it once you're on the new one, it's quite good. And I'm sure I've barely touched all the things it can do. David Pogue published a pretty thorough test other day:
<a href="https://pogueman.substack.com/p/125-tests-of-the-new-ai-siri" rel="nofollow">https://pogueman.substack.com/p/125-tests-of-the-new-ai-siri
1. zahlman · 1790030504 · focus · HN ↗
  > "What was the quote for my insurance claim?" - it'll look through your emails and pull the number with the source email so you can jump right to it.
  > The other day I asked "when did I arrive and leave Mexico City on my trip at the end of 2024?" and it nailed it based off my flight receipt.
  Where you see convenience, I see a security nightmare.
  1. browningstreet · 1790033912 · focus · HN ↗
    Why, factoring in the design of Apple Intelligence?
  2. EricE · 1790035163 · focus · HN ↗
    How? It's all on machine. Which is the point.
    Terr_ · 1790046619 · focus · HN ↗
    Doing inference locally is a significant improvement, but other issues remain, like prompt injection and data exfiltration.
    Especially if the whole point is to have it search through a giant pile of arbitrary un-vetted stuff, like all the emails you ever received from anybody.
  3. kdkdkwjdjwkd · 1790035945 · focus · HN ↗
    He says, browsing the Internet, probably with a Google account.
    CursedSilicon · 1790047081 · focus · HN ↗
    (Whispering) multiple things can, in fact, be bad
    odkdkwjdiwjd · 1790056063 · focus · HN ↗
    (speaking normally, as this is the internet and not an orchestra) No one said, in fact, that they couldn’t
    CursedSilicon · 1790065168 · focus · HN ↗
    Why do you keep making burners?

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