A personal AI road map for the present

Chat GPT: Please make a lifelike image of a stray cat walking along a street in Edinburgh, near Waverley station and the Walter Scott monument.

Ready or not, artificial intelligence is going to become a part of your life. Where we are now with AI reminds me of where we were in the 1980s with the internet. There were early adopters (like me), but eventually everybody was going to have it.

First, a disclaimer. I have been an Apple groupie for 35 going on 40 years. Thus I lean toward Apple products and discount (and even disdain) competing offerings from, say, Microsoft or Google. I also know next to nothing about Android devices, though I do have a Android phone that I keep as a kind of emergency backup for my Apple iPhone. So, Apple.

In the months since AI became the next big thing, I have been in exploratory mode — not spending much money but trying out AI’s to try to get a feel for what they’re good for and where they’re going. With the release last week of Apple’s new versions of Mac OS (version 15, Sequoia) and iOS (version 18), we have a pretty good idea of what Apple is going to do. Apple is going to have its own AI called Apple Intelligence, and Apple is going to partner with Chat GPT. Thus, for me, the course into AI adoption for the present is pretty clear — use the AI features built into Apple’s new operating systems, and combine that with a subscription to Chat GPT (which has a free version as well as a more advanced version for individuals that costs $20 a month).

Making images with an AI is a lot of fun. But, to me, it’s texts that really matter. The $20-a-month version of Chat GPT allows you to upload and analyze texts, though it’s not clear to me how long Chat GPT retains those texts. We won’t know until next month, when Apple releases new versions of its OS’s, what Apple’s capabilities with texts will be. However, it seems to be that Apple’s AI will read everything on your computer, including all your emails, and will know about you everything that can be learned about you from what’s on your Apple computer and your iPhone. I’m good with that, because Apple is making firm promises about privacy.

To be ready for what’s coming with Apple AI, you may need to upgrade your hardware. But that gets complicated, because sometimes AI’s run “on device,” and sometimes they run “in the cloud,” with queries uploaded to servers somewhere over the internet, and the responses downloaded to you, which means that you can use AI’s without having the newest Apple hardware.

Given that AI is in your future, your decisions really are about what you want to use it for and how much you’ll have to pay for it.