Is this the iPhone moment for AI?

Today, the term “iPhone moment” is often used to refer to a technology that has entered the mainstream. The release of Apple’s first phone in 2007 marked the beginning of the smartphone era. From that moment on, it became normal for everyone to go about their daily lives with a powerful, internet-connected computer in their pocket.

The impact of this revolution on society was enormous. Although the internet, online shopping and social media had been around for some time, they were generally limited to desktop computers. This meant that only those who had access to a computer, whether at work or at home, were affected by the online revolution. Suddenly, this was no longer the case and the internet was accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Apple’s recent announcement that it has partnered with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT-like services to its mobile devices (as well as desktop computers) may well be the “iPhone moment” (literally) for generative AI.

If your job, business, or interests revolve around technology, chances are you use generative AI in your daily life. However, for everyone else, recent research suggests that it hasn’t really broken through to the mainstream yet.

But that could change if the average smartphone user is about to benefit from a major AI-powered transformation. Putting generative AI into the pockets of millions of people in a way that seamlessly integrates into their daily lives could be as transformative for society – if not more so – than the advent of internet-connected phones. While this approach has the potential to be hugely democratizing and empowering in amazing ways, it could also present significant challenges.

What is a technological “iPhone moment”?

The iPhone is more than just a technology that suddenly becomes very popular. Apple’s genius was to create a device so intuitive and user-friendly that anyone who sees it will immediately realize that it could change their life.

It set new standards for user experience and functionality and ushered in the “app economy,” introducing the App Store, where one could find a tool for just about any task.

There are already hundreds, if not thousands, of generative AI tools and applications. Yet they are mostly aimed at business, creative, or technical use cases, and people don’t immediately understand how they would fit into their lives. General-purpose tools like ChatGPT, on the other hand, can seem too broad and lack specific features that people would find useful in their daily lives.

If anyone can bring about the shift in perception needed to change things, then history suggests it’s Apple. Integrating it into the suite of tools that millions of people use every day to stay connected, shop, navigate, and entertain themselves could easily be the step that makes AI accessible to the masses. For example, Siri is one of the most widely used personal digital assistants in the world, and empowering it with AI could normalize human-machine conversations, far beyond the “voice command” model we’re used to today. And why not give Apple Music or Apple Navigation the ability to talk to users, helping us choose what music to listen to or which route to take in a conversational way?

By making AI more user-friendly and useful, Apple’s partnership with OpenAI has the potential to create a sea change in society’s relationship with technology. But it could also create big problems…

Is AI ready to become a mainstream reality?

Today’s AI is certainly not without its problems, and the danger of everyone suddenly starting to use it is that those problems could be amplified in frightening ways.

Let’s start with an important point: the environment. It is undeniable that AI today consumes enormous amounts of energy and also generates a worrying amount of emissions. If it becomes widespread and millions of us use it every day, this phenomenon will only increase. This would create enormous problems for a world where reducing our carbon footprint is a priority.

Then there’s the problem of AI hallucination. Anyone who’s used a tool like ChatGPT for any length of time will have realised that it sometimes makes things up. While this isn’t always a problem when we’re using it in a limited way to compose emails, for example, which can be easily proofread and checked, it could become even more problematic if millions of people are suddenly using it for everyday activities like browsing, reminding them of important tasks or managing their daily schedules.

Added to this are the issues of data privacy and security. How can we ensure that casual and everyday users understand the risks of storing personal data in opaque and often unaccountable AI systems, without knowing how that data will be stored, processed and shared?

If Elon Musk, one of the founders of OpenAI, is now threatening to ban Apple devices from his workplaces because of his privacy concerns, that’s probably an issue we should take seriously.

Unlike its competitors, Apple didn’t have a publicly available generative AI before this partnership was announced, so it makes sense that it would want to work with OpenAI, the rising star of the generative AI revolution.

But just as the widespread adoption of the internet and smartphones brought challenges that society still faces, so too will the integration of generative AI into everyday life.

We can take comfort in the fact that Apple has a relatively good record of protecting user privacy. But will it be able to mitigate the risks associated with large-scale AI hallucinations and carbon emissions?

For better or worse, this partnership has the potential to bring about big changes for all of us. Addressing these challenges will be critical to ensuring that the integration of generative AI is done in a way that benefits us all, without further harming society or the planet.