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⚙️ Apple is falling behind in the AI race
The Deep View
June 10, 2025
Good morning. Corporate AI adoption just hit the brakes for the first time in 10 months, with companies like Klarna forced to rehire human workers after AI cuts tanked their customer service quality. Turns out 42% of businesses are now abandoning their generative AI pilot projects—apparently "revolutionary productivity gains" don't always survive contact with reality.
— The Deep View Crew
In today’s newsletter:
🌍 AI for Good: UCI’s $6M initiative to tackle geothermal energy's earthquake problem
🎥 AI Film Festival showcases next-gen cinema amid industry upheaval
🍎 Apple WWDC’s announcement of “Liquid Glass” design can't hide AI struggles
🌍 AI for Good: UCI’s $6M initiative to tackle geothermal energy's earthquake problem
Source: UCI
UC Irvine is spearheading a $6 million AI initiative aimed at solving some of geothermal energy's most persistent challenges—particularly the earthquake risks that have derailed projects worldwide.
The three-year project, called Geophysicist.AI, is part of UC's broader $18 million investment in AI research across strategic areas including genomics, quantum materials discovery and geothermal energy.
What's happening: The AI system aims to predict and prevent induced seismicity—human-caused earthquakes that occur when high-pressure fluids are injected underground to extract geothermal energy. These earthquakes have become a major barrier to geothermal development, with projects in South Korea, Switzerland and elsewhere shut down after triggering damaging seismic events.
Mohammad Javad Abdolhosseini Qomi, the project's lead researcher at UC Irvine, said the initiative will integrate massive datasets from drilling sites across the Western U.S. with physics-informed AI models to create what he describes as a "digital geophysicist" capable of understanding underground processes.
The timing is critical. Enhanced geothermal systems, which crack open impermeable rocks to access previously unreachable heat, are considered crucial for the clean energy transition. But recent research shows induced earthquakes can reach magnitudes above 5.0, causing structural damage and public opposition.
Why it matters: The project addresses a fundamental tension in clean energy development. While geothermal energy could provide reliable baseload power without weather dependence, the earthquake risks have led to development moratoriums and project cancellations.
Recent studies show traditional "traffic light" monitoring systems—which halt operations when seismic activity exceeds certain thresholds—often fail to prevent larger earthquakes. Research published earlier this year found clear correlations between injection volumes and seismic activity in California's Salton Sea Geothermal Field, where earthquake risks are increasing alongside energy production.
The UC Irvine team will collaborate with researchers from UC Berkeley, Riverside, San Diego and Santa Cruz, plus scientists from Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories. They'll draw data from the Department of Energy's Earthshot Center and the Sanford Underground Research Facility.
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🎥 AI Film Festival showcases next-gen cinema amid industry upheaval
Source: Total Pixel Space
Runway's third annual AI Film Festival packed New York's Alice Tully Hall, showcasing AI's growing role in filmmaking while exposing deep tensions over the technology's impact on creative jobs.
Total Pixel Space, a nine-minute film exploring digital imagery's mathematical possibilities, won the top prize. The event drew more than 1,000 attendees—a major upgrade from previous editions in smaller downtown venues.
What's happening: Submissions jumped from 300 to 6,000 since the festival's debut, reflecting AI's rapid adoption. The event, backed by $3 billion AI company Runway, represents the first major celebration of AI-generated cinema to reach mainstream audiences.
The festival unfolded against fierce industry resistance. Last year's Hollywood strikes centered partly on AI concerns, with unions securing protections against digital replicas and synthetic performers. IATSE and other behind-the-scenes unions are preparing for negotiations with AI protections as a major issue.
Why this matters: The festival coincides with Lionsgate's groundbreaking deal with Runway—the first partnership between a major studio and AI video company. Lionsgate is training Runway's models on its 20,000-title library, expecting to save "millions" on action sequences.
Industry critics worry about broader worker implications. Concept artist Reid Southern called the deal "the first step in trying to replace artists and filmmakers."
The technology promises cost savings and creative possibilities, but workers fear job displacement as AI capabilities advance rapidly.
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Getty says its UK copyright case won’t mess with AI
Amazon is dropping $20B on cloud infrastructure in PA
Panthers coach says AI messed up his Stanley Cup quote
Apple claims today’s AI models aren’t as smart as we think
XRobotics’ pizza bots are cranking out 25,000 pies a month
AI is helping scientists find the genes behind tough diseases
IBM just bought Seek and launched $500M Watsonx AI labs in NYC
🍎 Apple WWDC’s announcement of “Liquid Glass” design can't hide AI struggles
Source: ChatGPT4o // Apple
Apple unveiled its most dramatic software redesign since iOS 7, introducing the "Liquid Glass" interface across all platforms while simultaneously revealing how far behind the company has fallen in the AI race. The June 9 conference emphasized aesthetic transformation over technological breakthrough.
Apple's stock dropped 1.2% as investors recognized the gulf between Apple's AI capabilities and those of Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. The company unified all operating systems under year-based naming—iOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26—for the first time in company history.
The Liquid Glass design language features translucent interfaces with dynamic specular highlights that react to movement, extending the Vision Pro's aesthetic across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch platforms.
Apple opened its Foundation Model Framework to developers, providing direct access to the company's 3-billion parameter on-device AI model through simple Swift integration.
Yes, but: The technical specifications reveal different architectural choices. While competitors deploy models with hundreds of billions of parameters running on massive GPU farms, Apple's 3-billion parameter model runs entirely on-device—offering privacy and offline functionality but limiting capabilities compared to cloud-based alternatives. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are investing $75-100 billion each in AI infrastructure for 2025.
Most damaging was Apple's admission that the promised AI-enhanced Siri remains indefinitely delayed. Craig Federighi acknowledged the upgrade "needed more time to reach our high quality bar," pushing delivery to 2026-2027. This represents a year-long delay of features announced at WWDC 2024.
CEO Tim Cook disclosed $900 million in estimated tariff costs for Q3 2025.
Apple's recent Q2 earnings showed revenue growth to $95.4 billion
Apple has lost nearly $750 billion in market value year-to-date, slipping to third place behind Microsoft and Nvidia.
Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management called WWDC 2025 "probably the most uneventful in three or four years." The lack of breakthrough AI capabilities particularly disappointed analysts expecting Apple to demonstrate competitive parity with rivals who ship major AI updates monthly. Developer response highlighted mixed reactions. The Foundation Model Framework received praise for eliminating inference costs and enabling offline functionality, though hardware requirements limiting Apple Intelligence to iPhone 15 Pro models and M1+ chips create ecosystem fragmentation.
Apple's WWDC strategy reveals a company making a calculated bet that the AI race will ultimately be won on different terms than raw parameter counts and speed-to-market.
The Liquid Glass redesign may be a stepping stone to setup the necessary infrastructure for an AI-native interface paradigm. By unifying design language across platforms before competitors, Apple is positioning for a future where AI capabilities matter less than how seamlessly they integrate into daily workflows.
History suggests betting against Apple's ability to redefine market categories on its own terms is unwise. But the AI era moves faster than previous platform shifts, and the window for establishing this alternative vision may be closing rapidly.
Which image is real? |
🤔 Your thought process:
Selected Image 1 (Left):
“Diehard stroopwafel fan -- the other image's stroopwafels are CLEARLY IMPOSTORS -- no filling! (although the waffle portion is prettier)”
“I think the layers of the cookie give it away, with the dripping caramel. The AI image is pretty, but if you love a good stroopwafel, you know what the real thing looks like!”
Selected Image 2 (Right):
“The real one was weird. It looked like the waffles were made of two thick tortillas slapped together. I've made lots of waffles and they never looked that way.”
“I'm zero for my last three. The dripping on Image 1 didn't look right to me; got fooled again!”
💭 Poll Results
Here’s your view on “Should regulators step in to curb AI platform giants from bundling features that wipe out smaller “wrapper” startups?”:
Yes — Too much market power (49%):
“Banks, oil companies...even department stores have regulation. Why should one or two mega corps, that seek to control all aspects of our lives, to behave without any controls?”
“Regulators will never keep up unless they use the same tools that they are supposed to regulate. There needs to be a moral and ethical AI baseline, which is almost impossible with government regulation.”
No — It’s fair competition (24%):
“If you build your company as a wrapper around someone else's, without their involvement, there's always a danger that they'll offer that feature later.”
Not sure / need more info (27%):
“There is good and bad in this, as an industry develops I think it’s good to allow innovation that wipes out old but at some point in the maturity model that should seize to be the case. When is the big question do we arrive at that point?”
Thanks for reading today’s edition of The Deep View!
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