“When people see it, they say, ‘that’s it?… It’s so simple.’”
That’s how OpenAI CEO Sam Altman describes how he thinks people will respond to seeing the company’s forthcoming AI hardware device for the first time.
The device is the result of the collaboration between OpenAI and Apple’s former chief designer Jony Ive. Not much is known yet about the product except that it’s rumored to be “screenless” and pocket-sized.
Earlier this year, OpenAI acquired Ive’s design startup, io, to bring AI to the masses through some sort of tech gadgetry. This weekend, Altman and Ive talked more about their vision for their AI device in an interview led by Laurene Powell Jobs at Emerson Collective’s 9th annual Demo Day in San Francisco.
Although OpenAI isn’t sharing specifics about the device, which is now a prototype, Ive and Altman were keen to describe the product in terms of its “vibe.”
Most notably, Altman compared the device to the iPhone, dubbing the Apple smartphone the “crowning achievement of consumer products” thus far. He said he could define his life as those times before the iPhone and after.
However, Altman complained that modern technologies are filled with distractions.
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“When I use current devices or most applications, I feel like I am walking through Times Square in New York and constantly just dealing with all the little indignities along the way — flashing lights in my face…people bumping into me, like noise is going off, and it’s an unsettling thing,” he said. The bright, flashing notifications and the dopamine-chasing social apps are where today’s devices are going wrong, Altman believes.
“I don’t think it’s making any of our lives peaceful and calm and just letting us focus on our stuff,” he said.
The vibe of the AI device, meanwhile, would be more like “sitting in the most beautiful cabin by a lake and in the mountains and sort of just enjoying the peace and calm,” Altman noted.
The device he described should be able to filter things out for the user, as the user would trust the AI to do things for them over long periods of time. It should also be contextually aware of when it’s the best time to present information to the user and ask for input.
“You trust it over time, and it does have just this incredible contextual awareness of your whole life,” Altman added.
Ive confirmed at the event that the device should be available in under two years.
“I love solutions that teeter on appearing almost naive in their simplicity,” Ive told Powell Jobs in the interview. “And I also love incredibly intelligent, sophisticated products that you want to touch, and you feel no intimidation, and you want to use almost carelessly — that you use them almost without thought — that they’re just tools,” he said.
