There are less than two weeks left until Apple’s WWDC 2024, and that will be when we confirm the company’s commitment to artificial intelligence. The data that has been arriving suggests that Apple will make a mixed proposal that will mix a small local AI model with a more advanced one that will work in its cloud, but how will it guarantee privacy in the latter case?
Confidential computing. That is the name of the technology with which Apple will protect our data when using its AI model in the cloud. That’s at least what they indicate in The Information, where they remind us that the term is not actually new. It’s been a long time since IBM uses itand according to those responsible, this allows the protection of inactive data, in transit and in use, that is, “during the entire calculation life cycle.”
black boxes. According to these rumors, Apple’s approach is centered on the use of “black box processing.” It is normal for cloud services to encrypt data on disk when it is going to be stored. However, the data must also be encrypted in memory to be kept that way when processed or transformed on Apple servers.
A Secure Enclave chip for servers. Apple thus seems to have found a way for data to always be private from start to finish. Apparently, they have improved their Secure Enclave chips for servers, which according to previous data will be based on the Apple M2 Ultra.
Not even Tim Cook will be able to access the dataThe level of security of this system seems to make it impossible for anyone, not even Apple employees or Tim Cook himself, to access the data. The company would also not be able to offer such data to security agencies if they asked for it to investigate a case, for example.
Future plans. This type of encryption system to guarantee privacy has apparently been in development at Apple for years, and the company has found the best time to use it given the rise of AI. However, the application of confidential computing may go further in the future. For example, creating wearables that did not want chips that were too powerful to take advantage of AI functions because everything will be processed on servers securely and privately.
Privacy as a differential argument. All the rumors that have come so far suggest that the AI functions that Apple is going to present at WWDC are not going to be revolutionary. Rather, it is going to update its features, and what can give differential value to its approach is, without a doubt, the guarantee of privacy.
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