Can AI Be Human-First? Apple Thinks So.

**Craig Federighi** (0:00)
AI, in Apple's view, can be used as this incredibly empowering thing. But there is a sense that things are changing very fast in ways that I think it's hard for any normal person to keep up with. And while I think we can look at this as yet another thing of the scale of the industrial revolution, which changed our world in a giant way, that displaced a lot of people in the process and still occurred over 80 years.
And now this is happening in a compressed time frame. And so I think it's fair for people to say, wow, I'm not quite certain what this is going to mean for me.

**Laurie Segall** (0:41)
I'm Laurie Segall and you're listening to Mostly Human, a tech podcast through a human lens.
Craig and Jos, I'm so happy to be sitting here with y'all. So to give context to the folks who are listening, you are chief of software, chief of marketing, very fancy titles. I want to start specifically with what I think so many folks have been thinking about, which is Apple and artificial intelligence. When I was watching you, Craig, on stage, there was one line I wrote down that you said that I thought was really interesting because there's been so much anticipation about Apple and AI. You said that some developers seem to be racing to develop AI for the sake of AI without thinking of people. Then you said truly helpful AI must be centered around you. I thought maybe starting the conversation with what does AI centered around me actually mean? What does that look like?

**Craig Federighi** (1:33)
Well, I think that's central to who Apple always is around everything we do. I mean, if you think going back to the beginnings of this company, there were this nascent technology in the form of microprocessors, and our founder said, how can we make something useful out of this, useful to people? Then you look at graphical user interfaces and mobility with iPhone, all of this is where there's all this technological possibility out there, and initially, it's used by people trying to figure out, what is this all for? What does this mean to people? I think for Apple, the question is, don't say, I've got a hammer and let me look for a nail. Think about, start with the person and their experience, and how you could make their lives better, and then look for the things that could enable that and build useful experiences out of that. That's what, for us, AI is another one of those capabilities that fulfills all of these things that we've wanted to do for so long in designing these experiences, but where that ability for the system, the machine, to really understand you and what you were trying to accomplish was only so capable. And now there's this leap in capability, and so now it can connect with things that we think we've always wanted our phone and our iPads and our Macs to do for us, and we know that our customers feel the same way, and now we're trying to bring that to them. But that's where it starts. It starts at what's something that matters to you, that would make your day a little bit better, let you feel a little bit more empowered, and if we can bring this technology to bear on that problem, that's a wonderful role for Apple to play.

**Laurie Segall** (3:13)
I cover all sorts of different AI companies and what they're trying to do and what their mission is. And over the last years, it's been fascinating because you're talking to folks who say they want to cure loneliness with AI. And as I was sitting there listening to what y'all were announcing on stage, and just to give a little bit of the things that I'm, that I were like, oh, I would use this or, oh, okay, I would probably use this.
Point your iPhone at the bill, be able to split the bill.

**Craig Federighi** (3:39)
Yeah.

**Laurie Segall** (3:40)
Tab organization, like Tabaholic, I'm in front of y'all, I have so many tabs open right now, it stresses me out. The notes app, I have very disorganized notes, I took a lot when you were speaking, but now you're able to use Siri, right-click it and the next thing you know, it can organize it and send an e-mail. You can have it scan and look at text messages and get a podcast in that way. Spatial reframing, I mean, I'm not going to announce all the things that you announced.
Back at you, we don't need to do an announce-off. We're good. But my point in all of this is like, when I think about this anticipation about what Apple's going to announce and don't get mad at me for saying this, okay? It's not sexy. Well, it is to the developers. It's not like sexy like you're going to cure loneliness or like cancer, but it's utility to some degree.