Elon Musk Concerned Over Apple’s Privacy Practices with New AI Integration

A long-desired technology for iPhone users is expected to become a reality. Until now, iPhones were unable to record call content, a feature that drew ridicule from Samsung Galaxy users who could. Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s comment on this technology has sparked a conversation.

On June 10, Apple announced a new technology at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC24) held at Apple Park in Cupertino, California. It is a new artificial intelligence (AI) system called Apple Intelligence. According to this technology, Apple stated, “Now you can record audio in the iPhone’s phone application.”

The new technology unveiled by Apple is based on the generative AI model, a technology that has recently gained attention, and has added the ability to understand the user’s situation and context. Apple revealed that it offers various intelligent functions not only on iPhones but also on Apple’s electronic devices such as iPads and Macs.

In particular, by utilizing generative AI, it provides services such as rewriting, correcting, and summarizing the user’s written text in most Apple applications. Through this, users can improve their writing skills through AI services and receive more effective communication methods.

This linguistic ability has been extended not only to text but also to the audio domain. According to Apple, now you can record or transcribe and summarize audio in the phone app and memo app through Apple Intelligence.

Both parties will be notified if one party is recording the call. After the call ends, Apple Intelligence will create a summary through AI technology to help review the key points.

iPhone users have received a gift of additional features such as converting call content into text and summarizing it through AI, following the long-desired call recording. Given that the call recording technology was cited as an advantage of Samsung Electronics Galaxy smartphones earlier this year, it is worth expecting a significant ripple effect from Apple’s change.

In response to this, Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, explained, “The recording, transcription, and summarization features of Apple Intelligence will be available in the phone application. When recording begins during a call, it will automatically notify the parties of the recording.”

However, some are reacting with disappointment to the Apple Intelligence technology that Apple unveiled. A YouTube channel with about 400,000 subscribers posted a video titled “iPhone call recording support is good, but Apple’s new AI is disappointing”. The video contained content that the emoji created through the generative AI that Apple unveiled is of poor quality.

Furthermore, in the IT industry, there is a continued assessment that Apple Intelligence is not an innovation but a common technology provided on existing generative AI platforms. Apple also seemed to be aware of this, emphasizing the advantage of not infringing on personal information when AI operates, citing its advantage of protecting personal information.

On the day Apple Intelligence was announced, Apple revealed its collaboration with OpenAI. Through the partnership between the two companies, Apple will provide iPhone users with the ChatGPT-4o feature in Siri.

The ChatGPT-4o feature is the latest version that OpenAI unveiled in May. Through this contract, iPhone users can use the ChatGPT feature without additional costs as early as the end of this year. Through this technology, the performance of Siri will also be significantly improved, allowing it to answer various questions.

Regarding this, Musk criticized Apple and OpenAI’s collaboration, expressing concerns about privacy infringement on his social networking service, X. On June 10, Musk said, “Apple is not smart enough to develop its own AI technology,” and “It’s absurd for Apple to claim that they can protect user security and privacy while collaborating with OpenAI.”

Musk added, “If Apple integrates with OpenAI at the OS level, my company will not be able to use Apple devices, and this is an unacceptable security breach.”

Previously, Musk had publicly criticized Apple on various issues.