Wow, Apple Intelligence is something else!
I did a sytem update on my Mac and it installed updates. Then it rebooted and said Apple Intelligence. So I went into settings, went to Apple Intelligence, and turned off the switch.
The switch turned itself back on and greyed itself out. Clicking it does nothing. Intelligence updates are still downloading. Also the red X in the upper left of the window greyed out. I can't close the settings panel.
I think SkyNet just owned my Mac.
I cant shut down system settings which is all greyed out now. Wow. I can't shut down the computer. "System Settings Interrupted Shutdown".
I'm unplugging it.
I took it off the network and booted it back up, opened settings, and I was this time able to turn off the switch, except it gave me a confirm popup, and the confirm was all in big red scary letters. I pressed on the big red scary letters and now...
.. well maybe it is off. Maybe it is pretending.
I feel like I'm playing Portal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI
That's insane! 🥴😱
So while it is fun to tell the story like this, and I didn't intend to deceive, I don't acdtually think Apple's AI was trying to survive. I think this is more likely what actdually happened:
1. I clicked the switch to turn it off. But there was a lag and it didn't turn off so I clicked it again.
2. When I clicked it the first time, it created a popup, but that popup was quickly covered by the settings window when I clicked it again. Clicking it again turned it back on.
3. Everything was greyed out because it was waiting for me to respond to the covered-up popup.
4. Yet the second click did turn the switch back on, and that popup was holding everything up including shutdown, which is bad UX.
5. And the red lettering was a design choice by some human at apple because they don't want you turning it off.
The fact that the 2nd click worked means I must have clicked it during a very precise window of time when the popup had already been displayed (else it would not have gotten covered up) but the main window UI had not been disabled yet. What are the odds?
Maybe it is more likely that the AI was doing this. I dunno.
I remember when this type of thing was called malware but now it's a feature
Sadly yes! Such practices become more & more prevalent I‘m afraid. Probably a sign of the times we live in…
that is what I'm afraid of: You cannot get along without AI in the future.
The intelligence feature was there in the update before this one. It came unactivated.
Today, this one was activated after install but I was able to switch it off. I've got mac mini m4
What the fuck… get a Linux or FreeBSD or whatever but ditch that shit.
I have it for compiling gossip. I only use it to compile gossip for apple-addicts. I use linux on my real machines.
Now that’s really some scary shit you’ve posted there. I wish you had somehow captured it. Have you considered consulting Citizen Lab or maybe can you leverage your own expertise to figure out what is going on?
Thats fucked up.. glad im escaping that ecosystem. Argh, disturbing!
time to look into linux mint
God Dammit. I still have my desktop on Sonoma because I'm afraid that Sequoia has too much of that crap in there. But my laptop (which i hardly use and has nothing i consider sensitive on it -- it's mostly hosting ollama for me) is on Sequoia. I've been putting off the latest update and now this makes me want to put it off forever.
so pissed at apple for all the invasive shit and updates defaulting me to opt in to new stuff that sends my bits to them behind the scenes. I've been using apple hardware for my workstation since literally 1984. I manage linux servers for $ and I've run linux desktops before but macOS is just so much better. But all this AI bullshit and unkillable background processes scanning my photos is making me seriously think about getting rid of all the apple hardware and starting over again with a linux desktop.
Fuck you Tim Apple.
Linux has done me quite well over the years. This type of thing never happens and if did then I'd just switch distros.
