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Shyam Sankar, CTO of Palantir, Says AI Researchers Have Started Smoking Because They’re Convinced AI (Claude, Probably) Is Going to Cure Cancer

16 October 2026 at 19:01

From the transcript of Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS:

Shyam Sankar: You know, I take — I think there’s a profound truth to Pascal’s saying that every human has a god-shaped hole in their heart, and it’s important to understand that many of these folks in Silicon Valley who are building this technology have filled that hole with the machine God of AGI. And I mean, there’s so many interesting stories around this. Like, for example, so many AI researchers have started smoking as a way of signaling to other researchers how much they believe in AI. I believe so much — (CROSSTALK)

Margaret Brennan: What? That makes no sense. What do you think —

Shyam Sankar: I believe so much in AI that it’s going to cure cancer. So I will — I’m showing you my chips are all in. So there is kind of this mass psychosis, social delusion around it, and I think it’s getting in the way of actually what is happening with AI.

Sankar doesn’t name anyone, alas, but if there’s any truth to this (and good god do I hope there is) it’s got to be Anthropic researchers specifically. They’re the religious kooks who believe they’re creating an AI god and hold the psychotic belief that Claude is already conscious. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, you crazy fucks.

Via Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion, who notes that the nation’s finest news source was on this story 13 years ago.

iPhone Duo Pre-Orders Launched, and Three Hours Later It’s Sold Out Through the End of January

16 October 2026 at 17:19

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

If you were hoping to surprise someone with an iPhone Duo for Christmas, you might be out of luck, as Apple’s online store in the U.S. is already showing an estimated shipping date of January 25 for all configurations following the start of pre-orders today.

It is possible that some Apple Stores will have the iPhone Duo available for walk-in customers on Friday, October 23 launch day, but it seems likely that inventory will be very tight.

I suspect it’s a combination of high demand and low supply but I doubt we’ll get any insight on that from Apple itself. It’s in their interest to let people think demand is simply very high, and not draw attention to their production limits.

I feel for the folks on the West Coast who woke up for a 5:00am start and still got stuck with December or even January ship dates. This is one of those times where it’s frustrating that, per Apple’s consistent schedule, pre-orders always start before reviews appear. People are left to guess whether they’re going to like it without any word from people who’ve used it.

★ Initial Thoughts on This Week’s New Apple TV 4K (4th Generation) and HomePod Mini 2

16 October 2026 at 03:18

Apple Newsroom, Tuesday morning:

The new Apple TV 4K features three far-field microphones, letting users control what they’re watching and discover new shows completely hands-free. Advanced echo cancellation intelligently isolates a user’s voice from background sound to deliver crystal-clear “Hey Siri” or “Siri” recognition, even while audio is playing.

This is nice, but I don’t think it buys me anything, because my existing Apple TV 4K is paired with 2nd-gen HomePods, and the HomePods each have a “four-microphone design for far-field Siri”.

The A19 chip in the new Apple TV 4K delivers up to 50 percent faster CPU performance and up to 2× faster GPU performance than the previous generation, for greater responsiveness, faster navigation, and smoother animations. The A19 chip also includes a new, dedicated AV1 decoder, enabling more efficient, high-quality streaming while using less bandwidth.

The new AV1 decoder seems like it might be meaningful, but does anyone think UI navigation and animation smoothness is improved by going from the A15 to the A19 SoC? I mean navigation is going up/down/left/right. I’m sure the graphics and CPU improvements matter for gaming, but the only mention of gaming in Apple’s own Newsroom announcement is this sentence: “With Apple Fitness+, the living room becomes a workout studio, while Apple Arcade and the App Store’s library of games turn it into a home arcade.” I wish it were otherwise, but gaming is such an afterthought on Apple TV that it only garnered the second half of a sentence that started with Fitness+, a service that has only been in the news this year because Mark Gurman says Apple laid off part of the team.

The new Siri Remote keeps its familiar design while adding Find My support with Precision Finding and an option to play a sound on the remote — making it far easier to locate.

That’s my single favorite feature in the announcement. I hate to say it though, but the previous remote should have supported these features. The 3rd-gen Apple TV 4K came in 2022, but Apple launched AirTags with Precision Finding in 2021. Remote controls are right after keys on the list of things people misplace most frequently, and Apple’s remote controls, because they’re small and thin, are particularly susceptible to being snatched by couch-cushion gremlins. Speakers, so the remote can play a sound to help you find it, were invented even earlier than 2021.

Pairing HomePod with Apple TV 4K already offers users an immersive viewing experience that’s easy to set up, and the new Apple TV 4K takes it even further. For the first time, users can create a four-speaker surround sound experience with Apple TV 4K (4th generation) and HomePod mini 2. The four speakers work together with Apple TV 4K to intelligently recognize their position in the room so audio timing and levels are automatically calibrated to the space. HomePod (2nd generation) can also be used in this four-speaker setup for the ultimate audio experience, as long as the front and rear speaker pairs match.

This is tempting to try. In other words, in addition to the two 2nd-gen HomePods I already have paired in my living room, I can add two of the new HomePod Mini 2’s behind the sofa for surround sound.

The elephant in the room, though, is price. Before this week, Apple sold two models of the 3rd-generation Apple TV. On a percentage basis, they were hit the hardest of any products Apple sells by the company’s across-the-board price increases this summer:

BeforeJune 25Change
HomePod$300$35017%
(Old) HomePod Mini$100$13030%
(Old) Apple TV 64 GB$130$20054%
(Old) Apple TV 128 GB$150$25067%

The new Apple TV 4K announced this week only comes in one model, and it costs $300. It’s great that there’s only one model for simplicity’s sake, but the number one complaint when the previous generation cost $130/150 was that it was too expensive compared to set-top boxes and sticks from Amazon and Roku. (Or the “free” option of using the “smart TV” software that comes with every TV set.) Now, with the new Apple TV, it’s twice as expensive — and Apple is not keeping the 3rd-gen models around as lower-priced options. I still think it’s worth it, personally, but the general consumer market thought the old prices were too high and I don’t see any of the new features making Joe or Jane Consumer think, “Sure, I was skeptical about the old one at $130, but this new model — which looks exactly the same — this seems worth $300.”

HomePod Mini 2 now costs $150. That’s not too much of an increase over the new-since-June-25 $130 price for the old HomePod Mini, but it’s a stiff 50 percent increase from the old HomePod Mini’s $100 price from November 2020 through June 24 this year. I generally round Apple’s prices up from their “99” values, but it’s worth noting that what I’m calling $100 was actually $99, and going to just two digits does have a psychological effect on buying behavior. Again, I think $150 is a reasonable price for the HomePod Mini 2, but it doesn’t feel as much like a lark as $99 did. $99 was a bit of a “Sure, let’s get another one” price; $150 is more of a “Do we really need another one of these?” price.

At the old pre-June prices, you could buy a 128 GB Apple TV and a pair of HomePod Minis for $350 ($150 + $100 + $100). Four short months later, with today’s new models, that combination would cost $600 ($300 + $150 + $150). That price difference is much more striking than any of the new and improved features in the products.

Secret Documents Reveal Donors Behind $330 Million for Trump’s Ballroom — Apple and Nvidia Top the List at $25 Million Each

15 October 2026 at 18:11

Jonathan O’Connell, Sarah Blaskey, and Aaron Schaffer, reporting for The Washington Post (News+ link; Archive.today link):

A list obtained by The Washington Post reveals all the major donors to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, including previously undisclosed contributors who have benefited from regulatory decisions, government contracts and, in one case, a pardon for a family member.

Tech giants Nvidia and Apple each committed $25 million, the top contribution amount, the list shows. The Adelson family, one of the GOP’s largest donor dynasties, committed that sum as well, as did billionaire Charles Ergen, co-founder and chairman of telecommunications company Dish Network.

Absent from the list is Trump himself, who has said that he is helping to pay for the project. “It’s being paid for a hundred percent by me and some friends of mine,” he said last year, days after demolition began on the old East Wing.

The White House publicly identified 37 people, companies and foundations as donors last October, without revealing the amount of their individual gifts.

The list obtained by The Post, an internal spreadsheet used to track contributions for the fundraising effort, contains the source, date and amount of all 67 donations above $10,000 recorded as of late last month. It shows a total of $333 million from private donors, aligning with the administration’s public statements. Additional records, also internal to the fundraising effort, provide more detail about the donations and indicate that at least $77 million came from donors who requested anonymity.

In addition to being a shameful display of abject corruption, it’s also a shameful act of support for horrendous architecture. This entire edifice ought to be destroyed — I won’t vote for any Democratic candidate in the 2028 primary who doesn’t pledge to knock all this Trump cack to the ground in January 2029. That’s table stakes.

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The FBI Arrested a Saudi National OpenAI Employee for Planting a Recording Device in the Company’s Executive Conference Room

14 October 2026 at 22:58

The Department of Justice, yesterday:

An employee of OpenAI has been arrested for and charged with using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications. Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a national of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was arrested on Oct. 9, and made his initial appearance in federal court today.

“This serious situation underscores why winning the global super intelligence race is a national security prerogative — and why President Trump’s leadership in creating the Super Intelligence Force is so important,” said Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton. “I thank Director Patel and our FBI partners for their diligence and swift action. The intelligence community remains committed to safeguarding America’s cutting-edge intellectual property from foreign threats.”

“According to the complaint unsealed today, Abdulrahman Alfozan allegedly concealed a covert recording device inside his employer’s executive conference room to secretly capture sensitive communications about the company’s super intelligence technology,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “Protecting American SI innovation is essential to safeguarding our nation’s economic strength and national security, and the FBI views that mission as one of our highest counterintelligence priorities.

Four references to “super intelligence” in two paragraphs. Not weird at all.

Alfozan, unsurprisingly, was fired.

Apple HomeView

13 October 2026 at 16:52

Apple Newsroom:

Apple today introduced Apple HomeView, designed to be central to the home and personal to everyone in it. With a stunning 7-inch Liquid Retina display, HomeView brings entertainment, connection, and smart home management together in one place, from playing music and making FaceTime calls to home monitoring and hands-free automations with voice control — all designed with privacy and security at the core. HomeView recognizes users by their faces, adapting so they can access their personal content in Messages, FaceTime, Calendar, Reminders, and Find My. HomeView features Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri that’s profoundly more capable and conversational, with broad world knowledge that powers richer music discovery and onscreen awareness. When paired with an Apple Intelligence-enabled device, it can also draw on a user’s personal context, such as their Calendar, Messages, and relevant information across their apps, to provide more helpful, personalized responses.

Your first question might be how this facial recognition to identify users works, using a Center Stage camera alone, when other products (like, notably, the iPhone Duo) don’t let you unlock using the camera alone. HomeView does not have Face ID. I asked about this and Apple reps said that first, your home is (reasonably!) presumed to be a safe space. But in order for users to be recognized — by voice or face — they must have a “registered personal device” that supports Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, that device must be present on the home’s Wi-Fi network, and it must have been recently unlocked. Per footnote 2 on the Newsroom post:

Personal context requests require a paired Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad running the latest software version with Siri AI turned on and set to a supported language.

So, alas, an Apple Watch does not count as a personal device. Effectively, your iPhone or iPad serves as a second factor to securely identify you. FaceID serves as a single factor for authentication, so something like iPhone Duo cannot do what HomeView is doing here.

Mark Stephens, a.k.a. Robert X. Cringely, Died at 73

12 October 2026 at 18:43

Mary Alyce Stephens (née Neader), posting on Cringely’s Facebook account:

Hello, this is Mary Alyce, Bob’s wife. I am coming to you with immense sadness to let you know that Bob passed away. His obituary follows. His family is not requesting anything, however, if you would like to make a donation in his honor, please consider The American Heart Association or The American SIDS Institute. [...]

Writing as Robert X. Cringely, Mark became a distinctive voice in technology journalism. He had an unusual ability to understand not only technology but also the human beings behind it — the dreamers, inventors, entrepreneurs, eccentrics, and risk-takers who were changing the world. He could take a complicated subject and make it understandable, entertaining, funny, and deeply human. He was skeptical when skepticism was warranted, irreverent when others were overly serious, and never particularly interested in following conventional wisdom. That independence was not simply part of his writing. It was Mark.

He followed the beat of his own drummer throughout his life. He was brilliant, funny, opinionated, curious, generous, exasperating, and unforgettable — sometimes all within the same conversation. He loved a good story and knew how to tell one. He could make you laugh, make you think, make you argue with him, and occasionally drive you crazy. Life with Mark was rarely dull.

Mark’s life also included heartbreaking loss. He was preceded in death by his beloved sons, Chase and Cole Stephens, as well as his parents, Ray and Lois Stephens and father-in-law Jim Neader. I could also add brother-in-law Jimmy Neader and niece Ericka Neader, but they were a thorn in our side.

That last dig, at her own dead brother and niece, offers a hint at why Cringely loved her. He wasn’t one to pull punches either.

Her full obituary for Cringely/Stephens is visible without being logged into Facebook (I’ve still never created one), but Steven Sinofsky kindly posted it to his account on X. Pick your poison. Update: Here’s a version hosted by the funeral home.

★ X Once Again Marks the Spot

11 October 2026 at 23:05

Upon taking the CEO helm last month, John Ternus began tweeting on X. He tweeted “hello”, posted an iPhone event eve teaser and then a promo video for the new products, celebrated Apple’s plethora of wins at the Emmys and launch day on Fifth Avenue, and commemorated the anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death.

X is the only place these posts go. Same for Greg Joswiak’s account. Lighthearted stuff too, like Cook “introducing” Ternus to Pikachu back in August. You may not like it that X has re-found its footing under Elon Musk’s ownership, but it has. I’m citing Apple executives here but they’re far from alone. There are hundreds of interesting people and accounts I follow that post on X very regularly and do not post anywhere else at all. As a word nerd I love Merriam-Webster’s account — fun, clever, smart posts every day. That’s just one example among hundreds. Here’s another. Fascinating new apps are being shown and discussed on X and nowhere else.

[Update: I stand corrected — Merriam-Webster does have an account on Bluesky. It contains a subset of the items they post to X. They’ve posted 34 original new tweets on X so far in October; only 10 on Bluesky. Plus on X they’ve chimed in with 11 clever and/or informative retweets from other accounts, including one from those notorious fascists at Sesame Street; there are zero of those on Bluesky. So while I regret the error of implying that Merriam-Webster posts exclusively on X, the 45-10 count for October to date proves my point just as well.]

I see more interesting posts on X than I do on Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon combined. I wish that weren’t so but it is. Most people don’t want to think about politics so they don’t. Those people, when they want to participate in a Twitter-like social network, go to X.

And I can’t blame anyone. The only network that compares to X, size-wise, is Threads — but Threads’s algorithm is weirder than X’s now, and the content I see there is relatively boring. My Threads timeline is full of engagement bait without being engaging. And if you want to judge a platform by its owner, “I’m grossed out and/or appalled by Elon Musk so I’m going to Mark Zuckerberg’s joint” isn’t a way to avoid being grossed out and/or appalled by the owner. Bluesky and Mastodon are too small for most people to care about — and, worse, they are the networks where politics are, in my experience, unavoidable. You can have a discussion about cool new use cases and tools for AI on X and people just discuss the tools and use cases. On Bluesky and Mastodon it’s difficult to have such discussions without arguments from people who (a) believe all use of AI is unethical, and (b) will shove their viewpoints into your replies.

The culture on X today is remarkably friendly and inclusive. It is a cheerful place. That cheerfulness is another differentiator. If you believe the world is falling apart and doomed only to get worse, that our obvious and real problems cannot be surmounted, X is not the platform for you. If you think the world is full of fun and amazing people and things, that humanity’s defining feature is our collective ability to solve any problem, that the only time better to be alive than today is tomorrow, it might be.

If you have stayed away, or even just mostly away, from X for years and then come back, people just say things like “Hey, glad you’re back!” On the other networks, especially Mastodon, they tell you you’re “feeding Nazis” — by going to the platform where Tim Cook posts Pikachu videos. These people have either lost their minds or refuse to check their prior assumptions. (Most of the ones who chime in about it publicly are the lost-their-minds types.)

But the bigger problem is that there’s little action on Bluesky or, especially, Mastodon. There’s a lot of activity on Threads, but little action. There is action on X. I’ve said for years that Mastodon is my favorite of the bunch and in a way it still is, but really that’s because when I go there I don’t have to be diligent to avoid wasting time. I avoid wasting time on Mastodon because there’s so little of interest to see. That’s a feature — for me — but it certainly isn’t what most people are looking for in a Twitter-like posting platform. They want action. The action is on X.

Without any fanfare — perhaps to avoid his ire — X has de-Musked its algorithm. I stopped visiting at all when the algorithm there was putting Musk’s own tweets into my timeline, every time I checked, despite the fact that I never followed him. But they don’t do that anymore. I don’t see much politics of any kind in my timeline, and what I do see is from accounts I chose to follow. I see tech (including a lot of interesting breaking news), sports (including a lot of interesting videos and stats), and stupid stuff that’s actually funny. My only problem with X now is that I do have to pay attention to avoid wasting time when I visit.

Plus, in addition to the tweets, there are now many interesting people using X to post entire essays and blog posts. I wish that weren’t so, for multiple reasons (e.g., no RSS). But it is so.

If you returned from exile on a desert island and took a look at X today for the first time in a year, you might reasonably guess that Elon Musk got bored and sold it while you were away. I do think he got bored micromanaging it, but the rank muskiness that permeated the platform after he took over is — for now, at least — gone.

Apple Only Started Suggesting iOS 26 Users Upgrade to 27 Three Days Ago

11 October 2026 at 21:02

Joe Rossignol, on Thursday:

Starting today, iPhone users still running iOS 26 will see iOS 27.0.1 as the prominent software update in the Settings app under General → Software Update, with iOS 26.7.1 now relegated to a smaller “Also Available” section at the bottom.

Just the other day I posted about how most users only get OS updates when Apple pushes them through automatic updates. But even for users who update manually, until Thursday, the default suggested update for users on iOS 26.x was to remain on the latest version of iOS 26. To get iOS 27 you had to scroll down “below the fold” and most users don’t do that.

iOS 27 adoption amongst normals is very slow, but that’s only because Apple wants it slow. That’s not because iOS 27 is buggy — it speaks to its Snow-Leopard-like focus on bug fixes and performance updates that it’s actually remarkably stable. The obvious explanation is that Apple is slow-rolling 27 updates to gate access to Siri AI.

Sunnny

10 October 2026 at 18:11

My thanks to Sunnny for sponsoring this week at DF. How can B2B software be so friggin’ delicious? Find out when early access launches on Monday, October 19.

‘Proof-of-Human’

10 October 2026 at 18:06

Benjamin Mayo (on X, of course), commenting on Apple promoting behind-the-scenes footage showing that the embroidered “Welcome Home” logo for next week’s keynote/experience was stitched by hand:

There needs to be a name for this phenomenon where every published piece of art by a company is now accompanied by a proof-of-human video.

I agree, and I think Mayo coined the term right there. It’s always been fun to see footage of talented artists and craftspeople making things by hand. But in the age of AI it’s a differentiator — not just that you aren’t lazily generating your art via prompts, but that you understand that heart comes from the human hand.

Let’s Check In on Trump’s Blog

9 October 2026 at 00:52

An actual post from the sitting president of the United States:

The White House considers anyone that uses the term, “Artificial Intelligence,” as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term, “Super Intelligence,” THE ENEMY! President DONALD J. TRUMP

This, from the self-professed “party of free speech”. Trump’s screws are so loose you can hear them rattling around.

Apple Is Slow-Rolling iOS 27 Adoption, So Far

8 October 2026 at 21:30

David Smith, last week:

Been really interesting to watch the iOS 27 adoption curve over the first two weeks. Clearly on a different path than previous years. Still steadily growing, at a similar rate to the ‘steady growth’ phase of most years, but without the big surge at the start.

Given that this rate is largely controlled by Apple’s automatic update logic, I suspect it’s a deliberate choice. Likely because it lets them manage the Siri AI waiting list and avoid a big queue on day one.

Smith’s numbers are from analytics from users of Widgetsmith and Pedometer++. If you look at his chart for Widgetsmith, there’s really no explanation other than Apple pushing automatic updates to users more slowly than in any previous year, and I think it makes sense that this is to gate admissions to Siri AI. You can also see from his chart that Apple has been slowing down updates to initial .0 versions in recent years — the adoption rates were much faster for iOS 15 and 16 back in 2021 and 2022. Note too that every year Apple makes it more and more likely that users will opt into automatic software updates. The overwhelming majority of iOS users get OS updates when their devices update themselves.

And remember the whole thing with slower-than-previous-years adoption of iOS 26 last year — that was all attributable to the auto-update pace set by Apple.

(It’s purely personal anecdata, but I feel like Siri AI has gotten worse since iOS 27.0 was officially released. It feels a bit slower and I seem to get worse answers, sometimes. I asked it for a word today, using it as an interactive thesaurus, and it simply told me it couldn’t. It never did that over the summer. I started using iOS 27 full-time on my iPhone the day after the WWDC keynote and I got into the Siri AI beta the next week. While it might be some sort of placebo effect, I feel like Siri AI was better — slightly faster and more useful — in July and August than it is now. I could be wrong, or maybe just unlucky of late. But I’m also quite certain that scaling up the Private Cloud Compute side of Siri AI is a massive challenge for a platform with over a billion Siri AI-eligible users.)

Jaguar Type 01

8 October 2026 at 01:22

This is a cool car. It doesn’t look like anything else and it looks like it’s been pulled a few years from the future. I don’t know about this whole trend where cars don’t have rear windows though. I get it that you just use the camera but my old habits says I want to see out the back sometimes.

But the only reason I wouldn’t buy this thing is that turd of a new logo Jaguar went with. I could not abide driving around in something with this typographic calamity.

Gurman Strikes Again: ‘Apple’s Smart Home Push Includes Doorbell, Lock, Thermostat Codeveloped With LG’

8 October 2026 at 00:02

The incomparable Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc.’s upcoming push into smart home devices will include a doorbell, thermostat and other accessories developed through an unusual partnership with LG Electronics Inc.

The products will be part of an ecosystem of devices that work with Apple’s new smart home hub, as well as an upgraded HomePod mini and fresh TV set-top box, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The new Apple devices are set to be introduced on Oct. 13.

The products developed with South Korea’s LG will also include a smart deadbolt lock, indoor security camera, outdoor security camera and floodlight camera, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the undertaking is private.

Though the two companies worked together to develop the accessories, the products will carry the LG brand. The South Korean firm is handling manufacturing and product support.

Gurman has more than “people familiar with the matter” (or Matter, for that matter) — he cites FCC filings from LG that have product names and illustrations of some of the devices’ rear panels (with the connectors).

As Gurman himself notes, this is somewhat unusual for Apple, but it’s not altogether new territory either. In Venn diagram terms, the circle for “peripherals Apple very much wants on the market” is a superset of “peripherals Apple wants to make itself and put the Apple brand on”. For some of these products that Apple doesn’t want to make under its own brand, Apple makes them through Beats. But for others they partner with other companies. They’ve long partnered with Logitech for keyboards, keyboard iPad cases, and even the Logitech Crayon, the only third-party alternative to Apple’s own official iPad Pencils. Unlike Apple’s Pencils, the Crayon works without pairing to a specific iPad — surely a godsend in classrooms. There’s also the Logitech Muse — an air-pencil/magic-wand peripheral for Vision Pro. (Vision Pro is a $4000 mixed reality headset that weighs 2 pounds, which Apple released in early 2024.) Apple does this with Belkin too — that’s another trusted partner for Apple.

And, in addition to serving as a longtime display component supplier for Apple, back when Apple had temporarily and foolishly exited the market for Apple-branded external displays, they worked with LG to make the LG 5K Ultrafine display, which for a while was simultaneously the best external Mac display on the market yet also an unreliable flaky product. Even at its best it had an unstable sub-par stand.

The thing that makes this partnership awkward for Apple is that these products — doorbells, cameras, deadbolt locks — are products that require the utmost of trust. What products could possibly require more trust than a camera with footage of what’s going on in or at your home, or a lock that controls who can get in? I think that’s why Apple wants to get into this market with products that they can put their stamp of approval on. But LG, of all companies, was just exposed in a scandal for shipping “smart” TVs that literally listen to the ambient audio in the room — even in standby! — and invade your privacy by tracking what content appears on screen. (I own a 2019 LG TV but I haven’t allowed it Wi-Fi access since, literally, 2019.)

Unofficial Command-Line Tool Removes Apple Intelligence From MacOS 27

6 October 2026 at 20:17

Scharon Harding, Ars Technica:

Unlike with previous versions of macOS, macOS 27 Golden Gate doesn’t have a toggle for turning off Apple Intelligence. That makes disabling AI features that you may not want more difficult. It also means that the AI models necessary for running Apple Intelligence will take up space on your disk, even if you don’t use them or if you go through your settings to individually find and disable AI capabilities.

In response, a developer known as Om Lahore on GitHub last week created RemoveMacAI, a command-line tool that allows macOS 27 users to “turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27” in a way that is “fully reversible,” per the GitHub page. They said that Apple’s Intelligence models take up “about 12GB,” but the models can actually take up over 30GB, The Verge noted.

RemoveMacAI “turns off Siri, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Image Playground, the ChatGPT extension, and all the summaries, then it deletes the models and stops macOS from downloading them again. Dictation still works because it’s a separate setting,” the developer said in a Reddit post first spotted by MacRumors.

Sounds crazy but it’s not rming files in the /System/ folder — it uses techniques that work with System Integrity Protection remaining enabled. I mean, I wouldn’t do it on a production machine, but, I don’t want to disable Apple Intelligence.

I can see the reasons why some people are frustrated that MacOS 27 Golden Gate doesn’t have built-in support for disabling this and removing the local models, though. If your Mac only has 256 or even 512 GB of storage, a dozen GB (or more) is meaningful. And there are institutional groups that have rules against AI — these places aren’t allowing Golden Gate at all until and unless Apple Intelligence can be removed. And that means not buying new Mac hardware that only runs Golden Gate.

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