A research team at Apple is now sharing that “state-of-the-art” AI bots are failing basic arithmetic problems according to Los Angeles Times. Michael Hiltzik writes,

The Apple team found “catastrophic performance drops” by those models when they tried to parse simple mathematical problems written in essay form. In this example, the systems tasked with the question often didn’t understand that the size of the kiwis have nothing to do with the number of kiwis Oliver has. Some, consequently, subtracted the five undersized kiwis from the total and answered “185.” 

Human schoolchildren, the researchers posited, are much better at detecting the difference between relevant information and inconsequential curveballs.

Apple has recently been rolling out tons of new advertisements promoting the iPhone 16 Pro, which will reportedly include the new AI program “Apple Intelligence.” Everyone from Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and rapper and Olympic cultural icon Snoop Dogg are cashing in on the opportunity to nab the latest shiny toy from the world’s leading technology consumer company.

The ads have been pitching Apple Intelligence as a handy tool to get consumers out of a pickle when they, say, forget someone’s name or haven’t read an email someone sent and need a last-minute bail-out. This ad featuring actress Bella Ramsey shows a young woman frantically consulting Apple Intelligence before encountering a man at a party whose name she can’t remember.

What’s funny about this ad is that she remembers when and where she met this guy but just can’t for the life of her recall his name. So, she had to remember a good chunk of how she knows this person to get the answer she needs to escape an awkward encounter. Another way out of this situation might be either to simply remember the fellow’s name in the first place, or perform the awkward and human task and say, “I’m so sorry. Can you remind me your name again?”

This other ad shows the same actress pretending to have read an email before a meeting with her agent:

Hopefully Apple Intelligence doesn’t lead Bella or other willing users astray. In real life, though, it seems like it would be challenging to consult Apple Intelligence in situations like these without it being totally obvious the other person. Talk about awkward.

It’s important, though, to recognize AI’s limits, especially when new AI products are being heavily promoted and hyped up by tech companies like Apple. Hiltzik continues,

…AI systems can’t accomplish much without having human partners at hand. But it also means that we humans need to be aware of the tendency of AI promoters to overstate their products’ capabilities and conceal their limitations. The issue is not so much what AI can do, but how users can be gulled into thinking what it can do.

More fundamentally, depending on AI to do basic functions like remembering a person’s name or reading an email encourages me to stop putting in the effort to think for myself. Ideally, I’d learn to become better at information recall instead of outsourcing my memory to a bot that may or may not be fully dependable in the first place. Sure, we could get the iPhone 16 and divine it in awkward situations to make our lives easier. Or, maybe we could just use our brains?