Elon Musk threatens to ban Apple devices due to integration with OpenAI

Elon Musk stated in

“If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, Apple devices will be banned from my companies. This is an unacceptable security breach.” He further added: “Visitors will need to check their Apple devices at the door, where they will be stored in a Faraday cage.”

Musk even went so far as to express his dissatisfaction in response to Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “I do not want it. Either stop this appalling spyware or all Apple devices will be removed from my business premises.”

What is the actual integration of Siri and OpenAI?

However, it appears that Musk’s knee-jerk reaction stems from a misunderstanding about how the Siri-OpenAI integration works. Apple announced Apple Intelligence at its conference this week, making several changes to Siri. One of the changes will be the ability for the assistant to recognize when a broader and more complex answer may be required, and offer the user the option to forward the question to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The OS-level integration that Musk is concerned about doesn’t seem to exist.

Other Apple apps will also be able to use OpenAI features, but users will have access to them if they wish. “Of course you have control over when ChatGPT is used and you will be asked before sharing any information. ChatGPT integration will be available in iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia later this year,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of software engineering, during a Keynote at WWDC24.

OpenAI also confirmed this in a blog post, stating: “OpenAI does not store requests and user IP addresses are hidden. Users can also choose to link their ChatGPT account, which means their data preferences will apply in accordance with ChatGPT rules.

Elon Musk, however, does not seem too concerned about reality. In another post on X, he stated: “It is patently absurd that Apple is not smart enough to create its own AI, and yet is able to ensure that OpenAI will protect your security and privacy! Apple has no idea what’s actually going on when it gives your data to OpenAI. They sell you down the river.

In response to this post, there was a community note clarifying the truth, which reads: “Apple has developed its core models that run on the device (locally) and have approximately 3 billion parameters. For more compute-intensive tasks, Apple uses Private Cloud Compute (open for privacy review) or OpenAI with additional confirmation.

Featured image author: Apple