Apple Newsroom, in an Apple Newsroom post Monday:

According to EU regulators, the DMA requires Apple to give any AI system nearly unlimited access to a user’s device, as well as the ability to act on that access autonomously without a user’s ongoing visibility and control. That includes the ability to read and send messages, make purchases, access files, and execute actions across any app. Security researchers have already shown that AI systems can be hijacked to steal personal data — like passwords and photos — and to permanently alter files and account settings without a user’s consent. As AI systems gain more capabilities, these risks are quickly increasing in frequency and scope.

Given the serious risks to users, Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU. Apple also shared a plan to launch Siri AI in the EU while gradually rolling out this new solution over an 18-month period. The European Commission said no. In fact, the European Commission did not agree to any of Apple’s proposals.

Apple will continue working to bring these features to the European Union as safely as possible. However, given the clear dangers to EU users and the regulators’ failure to acknowledge these risks, there is currently no timeline for Siri AI’s availability in the EU on iOS and iPadOS.

There’s a lot to unpack here, including more background information — and on-the-record statements — from a briefing Apple held Tuesday that I was invited to at Apple Park. But the bottom line is that Apple’s public statements regarding the DMA and the European Commission have never been this strident before. In its public statements, Apple has always been diplomatic. That’s the word.

Now, they’re a bit more on war footing. There’s a massive gulf between what Apple is willing to do with Siri AI in the EU and what the Commission is demanding from Apple for DMA compliance. As things stand there’s no middle ground. Apple’s offers for compromise have been rejected. Unless one side changes its mind and concedes its current position, Siri AI will never come to the EU, and what Apple is saying here is that they’re unwilling to create the open-access-to-user-data system that the EC is demanding.

And from what I’ve seen so far in a day of testing Siri AI, EU iOS users are going to miss out on something really good.

Thomas Regnier, spokesperson for the European Commission, in a statement posted to LinkedIn (with edited video, if you’d like to watch him read parts aloud):

What is the true story behind Apple’s decision not to roll out “Siri AI” in the EU?

This decision is Apple’s and Apple’s only.

Because absolutely nothing in the DMA prohibits Apple from rolling out new features in the EU.

Yes, the European Commission and Apple had a few contacts on “Siri AI”.

But instead of offering a compliant solution, Apple asked to be exempted from its interoperability obligations under the DMA — and this for 18 months.

That’s not an option. EU rules are non negotiable.

And it would mean that no AI agent other than “Siri AI” could be chosen by EU consumers.

Apple, like any other gatekeeper, cannot close the market. The DMA is very clear about that.

Our developers have the right to compete. And our consumers the right to choose.

Those who want to keep using Apple products in their current form can of course do it.

But for those who want to use another AI agent, the DMA will give them the possibility to do so.

Why this was posted to LinkedIn and not on the EC’s own press website is as inexplicable as Regnier’s bizarre choice to spread 14 short sentences across 10 paragraphs. I quoted the entirety of the statement nonetheless, to give the EC their full say. I’ll let it speak for itself in this post, but this does not contradict Apple’s position or statements in any way.

One of Ayn Rand's most enduring observations was:

"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality."

Few ideas better describe the history of central planning.

Every generation produces people convinced that society's problems exist because reality has not yet been sufficiently overruled by good intentions. Prices are too high? Control them. Wages are too low? Mandate them. Housing is too expensive? Restrict, subsidize, regulate, and direct. Production is inadequate? Create a plan.

The planner's confidence is always impressive.

Reality's response is usually more impressive.

The recurring pattern is remarkably consistent. First comes the promise. Experts assure the public that a new plan will create fairness, stability, affordability, or prosperity. Then comes the implementation. Incentives are ignored. Scarcity is ignored. Human behavior is ignored. Supply and demand are dismissed as outdated excuses for greed.

The assumption is always the same: if reality refuses to cooperate, reality must be wrong.

But reality does not negotiate.

A price ceiling does not create more supply because politicians prefer lower prices. A wage mandate does not create more productivity because voters desire higher incomes. Subsidies do not eliminate costs. Debt does not disappear because future generations are politically voiceless.

For a time, the consequences can be hidden. Borrowing can disguise overspending. Inflation can disguise spending. Regulations can disguise shortages. Scapegoats can disguise failure.

But only temporarily.

Eventually reality sends the bill.

And when the bill arrives, the planner rarely blames the plan.

The fault is assigned to greedy businesses, selfish consumers, speculators, hoarders, wreckers, insufficient funding, misinformation, or political enemies.

Anyone but the planner.

That is why failed plans so often produce demands for even larger plans. The original premise cannot be questioned because doing so would require admitting that reality was right all along.

The irony is that central planning is often presented as practical while markets are portrayed as chaotic. Yet markets are nothing more than millions of individuals adjusting to reality every day. Prices change because conditions change. Businesses succeed or fail because consumers decide. Investments flow toward what people value.

A market is a constant process of adapting to reality.

Central planning is an attempt to substitute the planner's wishes for reality.

One learns. The other commands.

One adjusts. The other insists.

And when reality wins, as it always does, the planner discovers Rand's lesson the hard way.

You can avoid reality.

But you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

That may be the most important economic lesson ever written.

“Observe the paradoxes built up about capitalism. It has been called a system of selfishness (which, in my sense of the term, it is)—yet it is the only system that drew men to unite on a large scale into great countries, and peacefully to cooperate across national boundaries, while all the collectivist, internationalist, One-World systems are splitting the world into Balkanized tribes.

Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.

Capitalism has been called nationalistic—yet it is the only system that banished ethnicity, and made it possible, in the United States, for men of various, formerly antagonistic nationalities to live together in peace.

Capitalism has been called cruel—yet it brought such hope, progress and general good will that the young people of today, who have not seen it, find it hard to believe.

As to pride, dignity, self-confidence, self-esteem—these are characteristics that mark a man for martyrdom in a tribal society and under any social system except capitalism.” (Ayn Rand)

*******

“Businessmen are the one group that distinguishes capitalism and the American way of life from the totalitarian statism that is swallowing the rest of the world. All the other social groups—workers, farmers, professional men, scientists, soldiers—exist under dictatorships, even though they exist in chains, in terror, in misery, and in progressive self-destruction. But there is no such group as businessmen under a dictatorship. Their place is taken by armed thugs: by bureaucrats and commissars. Businessmen are the symbol of a free society—the symbol of America. If and when they perish, civilization will perish. But if you wish to fight for freedom, you must begin by fighting for its unrewarded, unrecognized, unacknowledged, yet best representatives—the American businessmen.” (Ayn Rand)

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By socialist author Caitlin Johnstone.  She claims capitalism is “destroying the biosphere” along with “driving us into doom.”  “Capitalism has no ability to solve problems,” she ignorantly intones.  “We need new systems,” namely “collaboration based systems where human behavior isn’t driven by the pursuit of profit.”  You know, like communism for example.

I have no idea who is editing LewRockwell.com these days.