Apple is allegedly engaged on an AI well being and health teaching service, which might use information out of your finest Apple Watch to make recommendations to enhance your sleep, regulate your consuming habits, and create train applications tailor-made to your stats.
The brand new teaching service is quickly codenamed Quartz based on Bloomberg and industry analyst Mark Gurman (opens in new tab), though it’s allegedly solely in its early levels and gained’t seem in your wrist till 2024. As such, it’s unlikely to be showcased on the Apple WWDC 2023 convention in June.
The service will reportedly require a separate subscription, like different Apple providers reminiscent of Apple Health Plus. The AI interface is prone to work together with Health Plus – based mostly in your present coaching, sleep and restoration metrics, the AI will most likely advocate explicit Apple Health Plus exercises to you.
For instance, in the event you do loads of working, the AI would possibly advocate Yoga for Working. So we will see a bumper “grasp subscription” to each health-based providers within the pipeline. Nevertheless, that is all hypothesis.
The underside line is that if the AI works properly, it learns methods to higher tailor its coaching applications based mostly in your coaching historical past. The longer Quartz makes use of your information to advocate you exercises, the much less seemingly you’re to change to a aggressive product, because it means successfully beginning once more.
The report additionally says the AI shall be, or may very well be, used to “monitor feelings”. What this truly means in follow is up within the air.
Evaluation: Not a brand new concept, however AI health has me frightened
Getting really useful exercises in your watch isn’t a brand new concept – one of the best Garmin watches have been doing it for ages, and it really works very properly. Nevertheless, Garmin’s really useful exercises are based mostly on the Firstbeat Analytics algorithm. Which, whereas refined, isn’t a synthetic intelligence and may’t ‘be taught’ as such – merely interpret information.
I’ve written about this earlier than, however I might be very hesitant about following health recommendation from an AI service. Amazfit is making an attempt a fitness-focused strategy powered by ChatGPT, which I imagine is a harmful concept. An AI gathering information from its customers and shelling out health recommendation with out oversight from well being consultants ought to be a trigger for concern.
What occurs if the AI recommends probably harmful workouts or dangerous food plan selections? How can it cowl everybody’s wants besides in very broad strokes, reminiscent of “eat extra protein to construct muscle”? If Apple is trying into this as a possible function or subscription service, they need to be treading very rigorously.
The opposite factor that’s bizarre to me is the notice about “monitoring feelings”. Amazon tried one thing related with its Tone function on the Amazon Halo system, which tracked your voice and interpreted your temper. Will Apple’s function be one thing related? Time will inform.