As an educator, I am excited about the recently announced partnership between Apple and OpenAI. The association will allow Siri will integrate with ChatGPTand is part of Apple's announcement of a lots of new ai capabilities which will help users use ai to search for specific photos, get help with typing, and more.
Generally, I'm not one to applaud new ai developments. Recently, I wrote about how some of the pro-ai discourse in education leaves out very real challenges. Writing teachers, like me, are faced with ai-generated work.. In several stories, I have shared my struggles with identify and eliminate those generated by ai work in my classes.
While Apple's wide-scale adoption of generative ai doesn't negate these concerns (in fact, it probably intensifies them), I think this partnership has the potential to make ai more accessible and practical in the classroom, help with concerns about privacy and bias, and increase the mentoring potential of these tools.
This is why:
<h2 id="1-apple-has-a-history-of-making-technology-more-accessible”>1. Apple has a history of making technology more accessible
Love it or hate it, Apple has long created technology that appeals to non-techies by focusing on the user experience. The technology is designed to make you forget that you're using technology and focus on the task at hand, whether that's listening to music, scrolling through social media, or, hopefully in the future, chatting with a generative ai assistant.
Although Apple products are expensive, many schools already use them, and when Apple adopts a technology, it tends to raise the level of competition across the field. Smartphones didn't have great default touchscreen keyboards until after Apple's quality made it essential. Or at least that's what I gather from watching the recent movie. Blackberry — Am definitely I'm not old enough to remember the first iPhones, or when my family first connected a computer to that strange new thing called the “Internet.”
2. Apple has strong privacy expertise
Apple maintains such tight control over its devices and apps that it can sometimes restrict creativity. The advantage of this is that it tends to have a better privacy record than the competition (although, let's be honest, the bar for privacy in the tech world is a little low).
Better privacy is crucial to the ethical integration of ai in schools, since the last thing I or any teacher I know wants to do is give the tech giants more data on our students.
It's still unclear how exactly Siri will integrate with ChatGPT, but Apple has already touted some privacy features of its ai tools. Apple has emphasized that its Apple Intelligence platform will use a system called “Private Cloud Compute” to ensure that data processed in its products is verifiably protected.
“You shouldn't have to hand over every detail of your life for someone to store and analyze in the ai cloud,” said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering. ai/2024/06/apples-ai-promise-your-data-is-never-stored-or-made-accessible-by-apple/” target=”_blank” data-url=”https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/06/apples-ai-promise-your-data-is-never-stored-or-made-accessible-by-apple/” referrerpolicy=”no-referrer-when-downgrade” data-hl-processed=”none”>according to Ars Technica. As such, it is very promising that privacy is entering the ai conversation in such a major way.
<h2 id="3-it-could-lead-to-better-ai-tutors”>3. It could lead to better ai tutors
Many educators believe the potential of ai tutors is real, and there is some preliminary research that shows Modest benefits for chatbot tutors in some cases..
To take ai tutors to the next level, it seems to me and others that better voice interface technology is needed. The union between Siri and OpenAI could be a good way to make that better interface a reality. Ideally, the capabilities of Siri and OpenAI will blend seamlessly and you will be able to have more detailed conversations in real time with Siri, and be able to advise students on various topics.
Of course, there's also the chance that in the future you'll say, “Tell me how to get to a house,” and Siri will respond with a twenty-minute lecture on the history of ancient Rome that's also inaccurate.
<h2 id="4-apple-could-provide-a-healthy-dose-of-caution-to-openai-technology“>4. Apple could provide a healthy dose of caution to OpenAI technology
My impression of OpenAI's impact on education is that since the launch of ChatGPT, the company's strategy has been to release the technology first and ask questions about how accurate and secure it is later. This has pushed Google to try to do the same, but due to its greater reach, it cannot free the ai dogs with so few consequences.
The same fear of failure and repercussions will hold true for Apple, as it has a lot to lose from embarrassing ai setbacks. That gives me hope that as OpenAI technology is introduced through Apple, it will be more thoroughly vetted and will be a more “stable” product than the beta ai tools we've been seeing lately.
5. It's just fun
Okay, I admit it: despite my own misgivings about ChatGPT, I can't wait to have what I hope is a semi-intelligent conversation with my phone.
At their best, Apple products make technology fun, and I want that to happen more with ai. For example, although we all love to hate it, Siri is a fun technology, although technology/siri-alexa-google-assistant-artificial-intelligence.html” target=”_blank” data-url=”https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/technology/siri-alexa-google-assistant-artificial-intelligence.html” referrerpolicy=”no-referrer-when-downgrade” data-hl-processed=”none”>since its launch in 2011 it has stagnated. It's time for an update.
As I mentioned above, there will probably be ridiculous misunderstandings and the tool may not immediately be ready for prime time in education, but once it is, it could be an invaluable tool for students. Imagine if a student could say, “Hey Siri, can you help me with my physics homework?” And then Siri says, “Yes,” and that answer is not a hallucination.
