Apple poaches Google's AI chief John Giannandrea
In a major executive reshuffle, Apple has hired Google's Head of Search and Artificial Intelligence (AI) John Giannandrea to lead its Machine Learning (ML) and AI strategy. With this, Apple hopes to ramp up its AI and ML efforts, which are far behind that of Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Giannandrea will be one of 16 executives who report directly to Tim Cook.
John shares our commitment to privacy: Apple
"Our technology must be infused with the values we all hold dear ... John shares our commitment to privacy and our thoughtful approach as we make computers even smarter and more personal," Tim Cook said in an email to his staff.
Apple's stance on security puts it at disadvantage in AI
Apple is known to have a strong stance on data privacy and security which is how it pegs iPhone as the most secure phone of all. But building services based on neural networks primarily requires the latter to be trained on large amounts of user data. With Giannandrea, the company hopes to improve its AI algorithms without violating its stance on privacy.
Apple lags behind Google, Facebook in AI
Due to this, which can be one of several reasons, Apple has struggled to make tangible progress in AI-related fields like computer vision and natural language processing for many years now. On the other hand, competitors like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have access to both user data and research talent to build AI-based self-improving software with large-scale applicability.
Apple hiring for Siri division with 161 vacancies
In fact, noting that Siri lags behind Amazon's Alexa and the Google Assistant in smartness, Apple has ramped up its efforts towards its voice-enabled digital assistant by rolling out as many as 161 Siri-related vacancies as of March end.
The man of the hour
53-year-old Giannandrea was responsible for pushing AI integration across Google's products including Search, Gmail, and Google Assistant. He joined Google in 2010 and replaced Amit Singhal as the Senior Vice President of Engineering in 2016. He is now being replaced by company veteran Jeff Dean, who co-founded Google Brain, the research unit behind Google's most significant AI advances in the last 10 years.
