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Comment by ayakang31415 | Hacker News Reader

There was one part that I didn't understand about AI compute: For certain tasks, server side compute will be done as on-device chip is not powerful enough I suppose. How does this ensure privacy in verifiable manner? How do you CONFIRM that your data is not shared when cloud computing is involved with AI tasks?

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Your data is being shared. But they've shown that it is being done in a way where only required data leaves the devices and there are some protections in place which try to minimize misuse of the data (the OS will only communicate with publicly signed versions of the server for example). The call to Apples "Private Compute Cloud" is intransparent to the user, ChatGPT calls need permission if I understood it correctly.

So it is not really private then.

I think it's a semantic thing at this point. If for you private can't mean plaintext living on a computer you don't control then no. If it's private in the way your iCloud photos are private then yes, and seemingly more so.

What does private mean? If I store my children's photos on iCloud encrypted, that's not private?

> the OS will only communicate with publicly signed versions of the server for example

This hardly increases security, and does not increase privacy at all. If anything it provides Apple with an excuse that they will throw at you when you ask "why can't I configure my iOS device to use my servers instead of yours?" , which is one of the few ways to actually increase privacy.

This type of BS should be enough to realize that all this talk of "privacy" is just for the show, but alas...

Can you configure a Google phone to use your servers instead of theirs for Google Assistant requests?

I don't know what your argument was going to be if I said "no", but in any case, the answer is yes, you can. You can even entirelly uninstall Google Assistant and replace it with your own software, and you do not lose any functionality of the device nor require access to private hooks to do that. I do that myself.

Before you write off their claims I encourage you to read more about the detailed specifics (if you have the technical footing and inclination to do so). While the approaches should certainly be probed and audited, it’s clearly more than performative. https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/

Also a good thread from Matthew Green, a privacy/cryptography wonk, on the subject: https://x.com/matthew_d_green/status/1800291897245835616?s=4...

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