Apple might make your smartphone dumber

Imagine Siri, but with occasional hallucinations. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a tide of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions which obeys eternal laws. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Apple’s AI]( comes with [its quirks](. - Tokyo has [a dating app]( in the works. - [Changing tides]( carry green perks. - Traders [brace]( for [Fed Day-CPI]( fireworks. [Apple]( We’re now on Day 2 of Apple’s foray into AI. How’s it going? On one hand, you have [this guy]( who would rather tweet from his fridge for the rest of his life than give Apple Intelligence the keys to his iPhone: But on the other hand, you have this chart: Source: Bloomberg So … I guess Tim Cook’s late-in-the-game strategy is working, despite [drawing the ire]( of Elon Musk and Refrigerator Greg. “Cook may be the most powerful man in AI because he is pulling the strings on what will be the first truly mainstream AI device: the iPhone,” Dave Lee [writes]( (free read). “Apple gets to decide which company gets access to the more than 2 billion active Apple products and on what terms. Google’s [willingness to pay]( $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on the iPhone is a taste of how valuable capturing the iPhone user is — and that was just for online search.” Parmy Olson [says]( the new technology purports to “draw on personal context about users, data it has purely because the iPhone is central to many digital lives — emails, calendars, text messages, pictures and apps.” Here’s how “Apple Intelligence decides, on the fly, if a query requires extra computing power,” she explains: - Step 1: Apple runs a query via Siri using a small language model built to work on iPhone. No internet connection is needed. - Step 2: If the query requires extra computing power, it’ll access a bigger AI model, via “Private Cloud Compute,” which harnesses Apple’s servers. - Step 3: If the query is even more complex, your iPhone will direct you to ChatGPT. You must give permission, even though the query will be end-to-end encrypted. Will it work as well as it did in the [pre-recorded demos](? Parmy is “inclined to believe we’ll see glitches and latency issues that will make it a tough sell to consumers — at least initially.” When these new features are unleashed this fall, they’ll be an [opt-in beta](, so your Aunt Carol won’t be [screaming at Siri]( to figure out whether she can eat her expired tapioca pudding. Instead, it’ll be the first adopters who determine whether Apple’s AI debut is a success. But time is not on Cook’s side: Although answering the initial prompt only takes Siri 0.6 milliseconds, the additional steps could take longer. “Consumers hate having to wait a few extra seconds for things they can do themselves,” Parmy writes. And speed’s not the only issue. “According to Apple, the smaller AI model is about as capable as GPT-3.5 Turbo, which OpenAI launched more than a year ago, and which doesn’t have a stellar reputation [for accuracy](. The hallucination rate for GPT 3.5 has ranged from [3.5%]( to [more than 15%](,” she explains. At least Greg won’t have to deal with his fridge hallucinating. [Risk]( The “boy sober” [trend]( is everywhere. Young women are ditching their [situationships]( to explore alternative pursuits — [books](, [baking](, anything but boys — and dating apps like Hinge and Tinder are [struggling]( in their absence. Even women who haven’t sworn off the opposite sex aren’t using the old apps to meet their dream [rodent man](. They’re on [Wingman](, which lets your friends and family play matchmaker. Or they’re on [Thursday](, the app that (you guessed it!) only works on Thursdays. Or maybe they got an invite to [Blush](, the LA dating app for Erewhon shoppers: What does it say about our society that people are putting their love lives in the hands of a bougie grocery store?? [According to]( Gearoid Reidy, this isn’t just an American thing. In Japan, Tokyo’s government is so desperate that it’s launching [its own dating app]( to encourage people to get married and make babies. Source: Ministry of Health, Labour & Welfare On the surface, this seems kinda smart: “Governments don’t have the same conflict of interest as commercial dating apps, where a successful relationship removes you from the dating pool, eliminates you as a customer and forces companies to spend more on attracting new users to replace you,” Gearoid explains. But how on earth will it work? “Tokyo’s app is far from the first government involvement in the dating scene — it’s merely one for the digital age,” he notes. “For decades, local authorities across the country have been involved in promoting marriage, from running introductions to holding dating events.” To join, users will have to provide proof of salary and family registers, which sounds Big Brother-y but Gearoid says it’s par for the course in Japan: “From preschool to the grave, the government is deeply involved in your life.” Now, it wants a say in your life partner, too! [Waves]( If what you seek is stability, perhaps dating apps aren’t the answer. Instead, you could move to a quaint costal town and worship the tides as they roll in, day in and day out. “Determined by the moon’s gravitational pull — and the sun, to a lesser extent — tide times can be forecast hundreds of years into the future. They obey eternal laws, rising and falling twice every 24 hours and 50 minutes without fail,” Lara Williams writes. And tides aren’t just cool from a celestial standpoint. They could help save the planet, too, since we know how to tap into the rhythm of the waves to generate hundreds of megawatts of power. “Tide mills, which use seawater captured at high tide to power wheels to grind grain, date back to the [7th century](,” she explains, “but progress has moved slowly since then. It took nearly half a century for a bigger tidal power station to be installed.” Yet hope is not lost. On an island off the coast of Wales, a tidal stream developer is hard at work. [Morlais]( is using a mechanism similar to an underwater wind turbine to harness the energy from the currents. Lara spoke to their team to learn more about the fascinating process. Read [the whole thing]( here. Telltale Charts Everyone freaks out when a date correlates with a mathematically significant figure like the [Fibonacci sequence](. But what about when events sync up? Wednesday, June 12 is Fed Day. But it’s also the day we’ll get the CPI report. This has [only occurred]( 13 times since 2008! It must feel like Christmas Eve in the Jerome Powell household. “US economic data downloads in the past few weeks have been [infuriatingly inconclusive](when it comes to judging the timing of the first rate cut,” John Authers [writes](. So here’s hoping tomorrow proves different. [Join us]( as Jonathan Levin provides real-time updates on the once-in-a-blue-moon monetary lollapalooza. Can’t say I’m surprised to hear that China is trying to pawn off its extra gasoline-powered cars on struggling Russian consumers, but it is sad to see, nonetheless. In the last year, 58% of the increase in China’s internal combustion engine exports went to Putin’s territory. “That might not be good news for EV makers, or the planet, but these holdouts are exactly what China’s traditional automakers need at a time of excess capacity,” Tim Culpan [writes](. After Russian automaker [Lada](, the next six largest players in 2023 were all from China: Source: Autostat.ru Further Reading Free read: Brexit has been [the very opposite]( of the growth-booster Brits were sold. — Adrian Wooldridge India just told Modi what it [really cares about](. It would be foolish not to listen. — Bloomberg’s editorial board Mitch McConnell’s [idea of democracy]( fails to reflect the severity of America’s situation. — Francis Wilkinson China and South Korea want to [escape the value trap](. Only one will succeed. — Shuli Ren Macron’s snap election isn’t just a political risk. It’s an [investing one](, too. — Marcus Ashworth OPEC+ needs to stop focusing on [influencing oil]( prices. — Liam Denning Biden’s [Gaza pier]( is nothing more than pathetic symbolism. — Andreas Kluth ICYMI Hunter Biden was [found guilty]( of gun charges. New York’s new [mobile ID app]( is pretty [mid](. CVS [store-brand drugs](, with a side of bare feet. Food companies hope you’re not [paying attention](. Starbucks is [launching]( a Hollywood movie studio. Four Iowa College instructors [were attacked]( in China. Kickers Kanye West destroyed an [architectural treasure](. [Joey Chestnut drama]( is what this summer needed. You, too, can [chaturanga]( among [the Louvre’s]( caryatids. It’s not just the [Black Keys](. Other [arena tours]( are also getting axed. Lydia Tár [will not appear]( in Deadpool & Wolverine. Notes: Please send Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](