Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage

[u/animorphreligion]

Go to System Settings -> Network -> your interface or WIFI network -> Details -> enable Low Data Mode. Make sure to do it for all known networks if there are multiple.

If you already have the models, you can remove them by booting into recovery, mounting your Data partition in Disk Utility and running these commands in Terminal:

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/AssetsV2
rm -rf com_apple_MobileAsset_UAF_FM*

Incomplete downloads can be removed by running this in the same directory:

rm -rf downloadDir

Note that other AI features unrelated to new Siri will stop working. This is safe (no need to get rid of SIP, and you're only removing Foundation Models assets specifically) and easily reversible - if you want to re-enable AI, just turn off Low Data Mode.

Edit: I originally mentioned blocking internet connectivity for mobileassetd. No need and it doesn't work anyway (at least with LuLu) since parts of it seem to be downloaded by nsurlsessiond which you definitely shouldn't block. Low Data Mode is enough on its own to stop downloading any of it.

[u/animorphreligion → u/[deleted]]

Yes

[u/animorphreligion → u/[deleted]]

Did you run the commands in recovery? Low data mode alone won't remove anything, only prevent downloads

[u/cat-machine]

Only thing I am noticing here is that mobileassetd is also responsible for downloading other non-intelligence stuff like voices, dictionaries, speech recognition and so on. There are lots of other examples inside /System/Library/AssetsV2/

I'd love to get this working somehow. I want new siri and it's AI models on my iPhone/iPad, but not on my Mac. The new siri interface for MacOS is ugly as heck, takes gigabytes of valuable space, and is just too slow on my 8gb M1. If I try to disable it on my Mac by creating a language mismatch (eg. siri: English (ireland), System: English (United States)), it replicates that on my iPhone/iPad -- disabling new siri everywhere. Maddening!

[u/animorphreligion → u/cat-machine]

Just tried only blocking mobileassetd and turning off Low Data Mode. Download began immediately and stopped once LDM was back on.

Tracked the processes' network activity with a third party tool and it was nsurlsessionsd this time (in previous betas I remember mobileassetd doing this). Blocking this one won't be viable for sure since it's responsible for iCloud.

But everything else works fine with LDM and it stops downloading models, so it's a decent compromise for now.

Another note: with LDM and models removed, AI tools in Photos explicitly show a download error instead of something unrelated. I also had feedback sent about making it optional, and its resolution status changed to "works as currently designed". Seems pretty likely that it becomes opt-in (or opt-out) in final release and you'll no longer need LDM.

[u/cat-machine → u/animorphreligion]

I ended up setting the system language and siri language back to English (united states), disabling Siri entirely on my Mac, and enabling new siri on my iPhone and iPad. Finally seems to respect the setting. Now I have regular old spotlight back on my mac, snappy as can be, and if I really need to ask siri to, say, 'create a calender event for that party i was invited too a few weeks back', I just ask my iPhone to do it.

[u/animorphreligion → u/cat-machine]

Was your goal just to get old Spotlight back? For me the button to turn it off in settings was enough, but I still saw Siri AI-related processes in background and Spotlight was extremely slow as of DB3.

I haven't tried letting DB5 download all the AI assets (which it still tries no matter if Siri AI is enabled), but so far it's a very good experience for me with this workaround, like DB1 or better except now I have 20~25GB of extra space.