Apple's AI Hiring Spree Hints It Could Be Making Its Own Version Of ChatGPT

Apple currently has 175+ job listings for open positions in the areas of machine learning and artificial intelligence, indicating the company may be looking to capitalize on the growing interest in generative AI like ChatGPT.

Big tech companies such as Google have announced recently that it is shifting focus to an AI future. At Google's IO 2023 event, the company announced a bevy of new AI features and projects. Google remarked in a press release, "We believe AI is a foundational and transformational technology that will provide compelling and helpful benefits to people and society through its capacity to assist, complement, empower, and inspire people in almost every field of human endeavor." With so many open job listings in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence, Apple seems to agree.

Even though Apple has been reported to have frozen hiring, if you conduct a search on the company's Careers at Apple website, you will find more than a few open job listings. Some of the jobs in the AI field that are listed include Generative AI Applied Researcher, Visual Generative Modeling Research Engineer, Proactive Intelligence, Applied Research Scientist, and Machine Learning Engineer - Generative AI.

Other reports have stated Apple remarked during its Q2 earnings call that it would be taking a "deliberate and thoughtful" approach to generative AI. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said in the past that while he is intrigued by AI, he finds that the technology has a lot of flaws that need to be solved. Perhaps Cook believes Apple is capable of providing the needed fixes to the highly popular and growing AI technologies.

The Wall Street Journal has also reported seeing a document stating Apple is restricting the use of ChatGPT and other external AI technology by its employees and is in the process of creating its own version. The report indicated the company sent an internal memo to employees with the message "No AI." Other companies have taken a similar stance against the use of AI by employees, pointing to the risk of confidential and sensitive data being collected by apps such as ChatGPT. This comes at the same time OpenAI released its iOS version of ChatGPT on the Apple App Store.

It may not be long before we know more about the direction Apple is going in terms of the direction it is taking with AI and its plethora of open job listings. Apple's developer conference, WWDC, is set to begin on June 5, 2023, where the company could throw out a bone or two about its intentions.