I will never touch this garbage and would rather use the disk space I purchased to be used for my purposes, not the industry's pointless fad bubble endeavors.
I would never have figured out the toggle for writing tools is in `Settings -> Screen Time -> Content & Privacy Restrictions -> Siri -> Writing Assistance`
If you want to do this on iOS I got it to completely delete Apple Intelligence data listed in the iOS settings. My iOS install is now 15.57gb.
Instructions:
1. Change Siri to a different language than your phone (can be Australian or UK English or Canada if you have set to US English or similar)
2. Setup Screen Time content restrictions. Restrict Siri to "Classic Siri" only. In the same page you can disable additional AI features (like the ChatGPT extension)
3. Turn phone on and off.
4. Disable Siri in its own settings if wanted or keep Classic Simpleton Siri that can still set alarms
5. Sometimes you have to wait an hour for it to delete the actual files.
6. (Optional) plug in via USB-C cable to a computer and "sync settings" to get it to try to clear some kind of iOS cache (Mac or Windows - on windows you need the Apple System Manager or whatever it's called that's in the Windows Store)
Clearly, nobody at Apple is thinking globally about this stuff.
If you have kids, "Screen Time" is a reasonable enough name for the place where parental controls live.
If you work under the assumption that AI features are OK in general, but potentially problematic around kids in particular, parental controls are a reasonable enough place to put these AI controls.
If you're not a parent, and have broader concerns about AI, you'd never even think of looking for these options where they are.
The thing that's weird about Apple's "Intelligence" features is how dumb they are. I messaged one of my kids yesterday that the pizza I made was ready and that I was out in the backyard with our dogs. Genmoji (or whatever it's called) then decided to suggest that I make a new Emoji with pizzas in a yard.
It's great that they're on device and all, but how incredibly stupid.
Mighty bold to assume that I'd enabled Siri in the first place. On the phone, probably personal preference and use cases, but why would you even have Siri on a Mac?
Is it possible to block Apple Intelligence from sending data over the Internet via Little Snitch? I would assume it is, but I'm not sure if anything significant has changed in macOS 27 that makes this impossible now. I don't really mind the local features - I'd rather they stay disabled, but it's not the end of the world - but I really don't want any data leaving my Mac.
Funny how Apple has reached the crapware maturity level that Microsoft users are quite familiar with: After first boot, go through a long list of things to deactivate so that one can experience at least some feeling of agency and privacy when using your own hardware.
MacOS GG didn't fit on my 16gb USB drives for a clean reinstall so I decided to upgrade from Tahoe and do a clean wipe afterwards, expecting that this leaves me with a clean GG install. But guess what, after wiping I was back on Tahoe after spending hours updating..
Apple's reputation of being highly secure was shattered by Operation Triangulation. This complex back door allowed the hacker the ability to utilize the on-device AI to sift through data.
It's really frustrating that there is no ability to reclaim the drive space in MacOS 27, especially on Macbooks with M1 or M2 chips that can barely use the models. Another great sign of how the OS is deeply on fire IMO.
The Write with Siri button that shows up whenever I select text is so obnoxious that I want to trash this fucking machine after 30+ years on the platform.
I don't know this for sure, but I would also guess that simply not singing into your iCloud account on the Mac is easier and would work just as well.
(I have a Macbook that I use for various things. Other than lack of access to the Apple Store, I don't feel like I'm missing anything from not having an iCloud account.)
Missing from Apple's list is the feature that suggest filenames.
At first, it was very cool and did a good job with plain text files, and even a PDF. Then it munged the names of several hundred files I was working with that was each named with a street address.
The Log4J vulnerability stressed the importance of avoiding logging passwords and keys. I think the newest Log4J will be about privacy, where PII is regularly exposed and instantly searchable by anyone who wants to know. I actively disable Apple Intelligence because they share my data with numerous 3rd parties with self-certified privacy agreements every time I press a key on the keyboard.
Before, it was ⌘⌘ and you could type out something for Siri to fuck up. Now, we have to turn off “Hey Siri” and then click on the Siri app or meander our way through Spotlight.
Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater! Apple has some impressive privacy technology for Apple Intelligence - including significant open source disclosure for public verification. If you trash them with the rest of the AI vendors, you deincentivize privacy for Apple and for the rest of them.
They describe it in great technical detail here (Private Cloud Compute (PCC) seems to be the server side of Apple Intelligence):
* Stateless Computation: "Private Cloud Compute must use the personal user data that it receives exclusively for the purpose of fulfilling the user’s request. User data must never be available to anyone other than the user, not even to Apple staff, not even during active processing. And user data must not be retained, including via logging or for debugging, after the response is returned to the user."
* Enforceable Gaurantees: "Security and privacy guarantees are strongest when they are entirely technically enforceable, which means it must be possible to constrain and analyze all the components that critically contribute to the guarantees of the overall Private Cloud Compute system. For example, it’s very difficult to reason about what a TLS-terminating load balancer might do with user data during a debugging session, so PCC must not depend on such external components for its core security and privacy guarantees. ..."
* No Privileged Runtime Access: PCC is designed without privileged interfaces that might expose user data.
* Non-Targetability: PCC is designed to ensure that an attacker cannot target specific PCC users.
* Verifiable Transparency: "security researchers must be able to verify the security and privacy guarantees of Private Cloud Compute, and they must be able to verify that the software that’s running in the PCC production environment is the same as the software they inspected when verifying the guarantees."
Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac
(support.apple.com)315 points by alwillis 16 hours ago | 199 comments
Comments
I will never touch this garbage and would rather use the disk space I purchased to be used for my purposes, not the industry's pointless fad bubble endeavors.
Instructions:
1. Change Siri to a different language than your phone (can be Australian or UK English or Canada if you have set to US English or similar)
2. Setup Screen Time content restrictions. Restrict Siri to "Classic Siri" only. In the same page you can disable additional AI features (like the ChatGPT extension)
3. Turn phone on and off.
4. Disable Siri in its own settings if wanted or keep Classic Simpleton Siri that can still set alarms
5. Sometimes you have to wait an hour for it to delete the actual files.
6. (Optional) plug in via USB-C cable to a computer and "sync settings" to get it to try to clear some kind of iOS cache (Mac or Windows - on windows you need the Apple System Manager or whatever it's called that's in the Windows Store)
If you have kids, "Screen Time" is a reasonable enough name for the place where parental controls live.
If you work under the assumption that AI features are OK in general, but potentially problematic around kids in particular, parental controls are a reasonable enough place to put these AI controls.
If you're not a parent, and have broader concerns about AI, you'd never even think of looking for these options where they are.
It's great that they're on device and all, but how incredibly stupid.
On iOS 27, it looks like changing the settings for eight different apps taking 5 or 6 steps each.
https://archive.ph/AE72I#selection-712.0-731.53
Original: https://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-turn-off-apple-intelligenc...
That title in itself is a good indicator of how they think of consent. If instead it was:
"Turn on and enable access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac"
I suspect there would be far less anger from the users.
Clearly a poor buy on my part
What's the thinking behind that?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38783112
Apple's reputation of being highly secure was shattered by Operation Triangulation. This complex back door allowed the hacker the ability to utilize the on-device AI to sift through data.
(I have a Macbook that I use for various things. Other than lack of access to the Apple Store, I don't feel like I'm missing anything from not having an iCloud account.)
Next phone is not gonna be an iPhone.
At first, it was very cool and did a good job with plain text files, and even a PDF. Then it munged the names of several hundred files I was working with that was each named with a street address.
Finder → Settings → Suggest file names
Before, it was ⌘⌘ and you could type out something for Siri to fuck up. Now, we have to turn off “Hey Siri” and then click on the Siri app or meander our way through Spotlight.
I talk to my phone. I type to my laptop.
They describe it in great technical detail here (Private Cloud Compute (PCC) seems to be the server side of Apple Intelligence):
https://security.apple.com/documentation/private-cloud-compu...
.
At the heart of it, they provide these guarantees:
https://security.apple.com/documentation/private-cloud-compu...
* Stateless Computation: "Private Cloud Compute must use the personal user data that it receives exclusively for the purpose of fulfilling the user’s request. User data must never be available to anyone other than the user, not even to Apple staff, not even during active processing. And user data must not be retained, including via logging or for debugging, after the response is returned to the user."
* Enforceable Gaurantees: "Security and privacy guarantees are strongest when they are entirely technically enforceable, which means it must be possible to constrain and analyze all the components that critically contribute to the guarantees of the overall Private Cloud Compute system. For example, it’s very difficult to reason about what a TLS-terminating load balancer might do with user data during a debugging session, so PCC must not depend on such external components for its core security and privacy guarantees. ..."
* No Privileged Runtime Access: PCC is designed without privileged interfaces that might expose user data.
* Non-Targetability: PCC is designed to ensure that an attacker cannot target specific PCC users.
* Verifiable Transparency: "security researchers must be able to verify the security and privacy guarantees of Private Cloud Compute, and they must be able to verify that the software that’s running in the PCC production environment is the same as the software they inspected when verifying the guarantees."