The main problem is not even the presence of machine learning content detection. It’s a lot of things predating any sort of machine learning development:
“Screw consent” mentality: feature is by default on.
Product tying: Apple doesn’t need to show to the user that the feature is desirable, since it’s tied to its OS.
Leaking data: feature could be reasonably developed to run locally, but instead it sends data to someone else’s computer aka “the cloud”.
The main problem is not even the presence of machine learning content detection. It’s a lot of things predating any sort of machine learning development: