FOD#66: GenAI Goes Mainstream: iPhone 16's On-Device Revolution

FOD#66: GenAI Goes Mainstream: iPhone 16's On-Device Revolution

we discuss today's presentation by Apple and how smart they are about smartphones + we offer you the best-curated list of news and papers

This Week in Turing Post:

  • Wednesday, AI 101: a deep dive Hybrid RAG
  • Friday, Agentic Workflows: Introduction of the new series


The main topic

On-Device AI = mind-blowing mass adaption

For the first time in years, the new iPhone offers something that truly outshines all other smartphones. Skillfully navigating the turbulent waters of AI, Apple has embraced the best technology available – without burning billions. And because the iPhone is always either in your pocket or setting the competitive pace for other smartphones, on-device AI is truly becoming a reality. In a year, no one will remember a time when we lived without AI in our phones – and here, the "AI" stands for Apple Intelligence.

Deep Integration of Hardware and AI

What sets Apple Intelligence apart from generic AI integrations on other platforms is its deep coupling with the silicon. The A18 chip, built on second-gen 3nm technology, not only runs inference tasks but integrates Apple's entire ecosystem. It’s optimized to ensure smooth, real-time applications of AI features like natural language understanding, image generation, and personal context-driven suggestions – all while maintaining energy efficiency, a crucial factor in edge computing.

A18 Chip: Optimized for AI at the Edge

Apple’s move with the A18 chip signals a huge leap in on-device AI performance. With a 16-core neural engine optimized for running large-scale generative models, the iPhone 16 is essentially bringing AI to your pocket. For AI professionals, this means a potential playground for running inference tasks on the fly, leveraging optimized hardware without needing cloud resources. The device boasts a 30% faster CPU and a 40% faster GPU compared to its predecessor, iPhone 15. These improvements aren’t just for gaming or photo processing, though – Apple Intelligence aims to embed generative AI into everyday user interactions.

According to FT, he A18 chip is built on Arm's V9 architecture, a cutting-edge design that Apple has embraced through its multi-year licensing agreement with the UK-based, SoftBank-owned company. Arm's V9 provides the building blocks for the chip’s neural engine, allowing Apple to optimize performance for generative AI workloads directly on-device. This partnership is crucial as Apple leans further into AI, ensuring that its hardware can meet the growing computational demands without compromising battery life or device efficiency. With this architecture, Apple can push the boundaries of mobile AI, embedding sophisticated models into daily user experiences while maintaining security and privacy.

Privacy-Centric AI Architecture

Perhaps the most significant development is Apple’s approach to privacy. With Apple Intelligence, users can access private cloud compute for more resource-hungry generative models. The brilliance here is in the architecture: sensitive data stays on the device, and any cloud interaction is end-to-end encrypted, ensuring privacy is maintained without sacrificing performance. This opens up new opportunities for mobile AI, particularly in sectors where data security is paramount, such as healthcare and fintech.

Transforming Computational Photography

The iPhone 16 camera system, powered by this generative AI backbone, takes computational photography to a new level. The 48MP fusion camera now uses the same AI capabilities to enhance image quality, but it’s the integration of visual intelligence that stands out. Think of it as real-time inference running within your pocket – instant identification of objects, text, and even actions through the camera interface. The demo, at least, looks pretty cool and believable.

A Glimpse into the Future of Edge AI

For ML engineers and AI researchers, the iPhone 16 represents an intriguing case of edge AI deployment. As we move toward a future where models can be fine-tuned and run efficiently on consumer devices, Apple’s hardware-software integration sets a precedent.

Hearing Aid

I have to mention what Apple offers now with their AirPods: they introduced end-to-end hearing health experience, which includes the ability to use AirPods Pro 2 as a clinical-grade hearing aid. Bravo and thank you.

Now, actually looking forward to get a new iPhone 16 Pro and test all new AI stuff myself.


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Related to Superintelligence/AGI (new rubric!)


News from The Usual Suspects ?

  • Reflection 70B: A Sonnet of Discontent?

Hyped as revolutionary, Reflection 70B left the AI community with trust issues. Turns out it’s just a fancy wrap for existing models like GPT and Claude, sparking accusations of deception. Creator Matt Shumer is now under fire for overselling what wasn’t truly novel. The most remarkable part of this story is how quickly the AI community caught on and raised the alarm. Alexander Wang, Thomas Wolf, and others immediately stressed the importance of developing a proper evaluation system. However, in my opinion, since so much is based ‘on vibes,’ evaluations are hard to create and even harder to trust.

  • Hugging Face meanwhile is ?? and ??

  • Code Wars: Replit's Agent Strikes Back
  • Replit dives deeper into AI-driven code with its new agent, joining the likes of Codeium and Magic. Designed for dev automation from setup to deployment, Replit's Agent aims to free coders from grunt work.

  • DeepMind’s AlphaProteo Breakthrough

DeepMind is simply amazing. Their AlphaProteo is reshaping biotech by designing novel protein binders, crucial for disease-fighting drugs. With successes against SARS-CoV-2 and cancer proteins, AlphaProteo leaps ahead of previous methods, proving that AI is an extremely useful thing.

  • Salesforce’s xLAM: Actions Speak Louder

Salesforce introduces xLAM, a suite of AI models supercharging agent functions and function-calling tasks. With optimized performance on benchmarks like ToolBench, xLAM is built to drive efficiency across sectors, from mobile apps to complex systems. The only sad thing about it is that in Russian it looks like the word ХЛАМ, which means – garbage.

  • NVIDIA's Narrow Path

Nearly half of Nvidia’s $30B Q2 2024 revenue stems from just four heavyweights – Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google. While their AI thirst powers Nvidia's success, such concentration might be dangerous.

NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Institute with Dartmouth College launch a free Generative AI Teaching Kit. With modules on LLMs, NLP, and diffusion models, students can now train AI models using NVIDIA’s cloud platform.

  • Sakana AI: Small Models, Big Dreams

Tokyo’s Sakana AI swims upstream with $100M+ in backing, including a splash from NVIDIA. Led by ex-Google Brain David Ha, Sakana's focus on small, energy-efficient AI models aligns with Japan’s ambitions for tech independence. With nature-inspired AI evolution, they're schooling the competition. (*Sakana means fish in Japanese)

  • SSI: Sutskever’s $1B Bet on Safe AI

"Everyone just says 'scaling hypothesis’. Everyone neglects to ask, what are we scaling?" said Ilya. And he himself is now chasing safety. With $1B in funding, his new venture, Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), aims to steer AI towards a future aligned with human values. Early-stage, but already worth $5B. Ilya should feel pretty safe.

We are watching/reading:

Here AI and data expert and our reader John Thompson summarized 15 main prompt engineering tips from that video.


The freshest research papers were published. We categorized them for your convenience ????


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