By Dan Moren

August 30, 2024 9:00 AM PT

The Back Page: You are Apple Intelligence

Hi team,
In advance of our upcoming “It’s Glowtime” event, I want to take a moment to tell you how proud I am of each and every one of you for the dedication you have shown to our company, the long hours you’ve put in, and the creative energy you have dedicated to our cause.

We are on the cusp of releasing Apple Intelligence, a watershed moment for the technology industry and for all of humanity. It will fundamentally change the relationship people have with their devices and we literally could not do it without you. Because you are Apple Intelligence.

This is not an overwrought metaphor. You are literally Apple Intelligence. We have unleashed our cloud models on all of the work that you have done here at Apple—collectively accounting for centuries if not millennia of time spent—and used it to fuel the model that will provide this engine of change. Without you, Apple Intelligence would not know how to write, how to draw, or even how to code. Had I not been previously chastened by our esteemed PR department, I would perhaps compare it to having all of you placed into a hydraulic press and distilled into one perfect slab of knowledge.

Of course, Apple Intelligence is not perfect—far from it. After all, we humans are not perfect either. But by concentrating all of the skills and expertise of everybody at Apple, we have truly achieved a pinnacle of mediocrity. That’s something we can all be proud of.

But your part in this isn’t done yet. As we continue to develop and release Apple Intelligence features, we know that there are situations where our ambition outstrips our current capabilities. We don’t want to dissuade our customers from using this life-changing technology because of any perceived shortcomings, so today I want to tell you about an upcoming new initiative that we call Apple Mechanical Intelligence.

With Apple Mechanical Intelligence, users can go above and beyond what’s possible with today’s machine learning.

Does your email need a punch-up to be not just more professional but more hilarious? With Apple Mechanical Intelligence it can be sent to our crack editorial team who will rewrite it with incisive humor and complete understanding of context before sending it right back to you, all in a matter of moments.

Ask a question that Siri can’t answer about simple facts like when a new TV show starts or “when is the next Friday the 13th”? It’ll be forwarded to our team of interns, who will look it up on Google and seamlessly return the answer to you.

Need to not just remove an unwanted person from your photo but add a herd of stampeding elephants with head-mounted lasers to explain why you were late to work? No problem: our expert graphics department can use their Pixel 9 phones to create the bespoke image for you.

And because we’re relying on our existing employees for all of these capabilities, this is one type of AI that won’t cost anyone their job. Apple Mechanical Intelligence is truly the next generation of human-based artificial intelligence.

I can’t wait for each and every one of you to get a chance to try out Apple Mechanical Intelligence, when you’re not on duty providing services for Apple Mechanical Intelligence. Only Apple, with its focus on hardware, software, services, and services revenue growth, could do this and I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished together.

Best,
Tim

Sent by Apple Mechanical Intelligence

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]