After working in Silicon Valley for over 30 years, Jony Ive shaped the iMac shell, designed the iPod look, and came up with the iPhone form factor. From the heyday of Alta Vista until today, almost every major part of Apple technology we touched first passed through Ive's hands.
There is no doubt that such a legacy has seduced Sam Altman to recruit him. This week, the founder of Openai bought the former Apple designer startup IO for $6.5 billion (at least 130 million vintage iPod shuffles) – then on a crying Davis Guggenheim video, two of which will “learn the device” together to work together on a private “device basis.” io, io, what we go is heading towards us.
Altman has been trying to convince investors and the public to change the course of civilization since he released ChatGpt 30 months ago (and for a while before). What do you do if you want to implement technology that everyone uses? You hire the technology everyone uses.
Well, that's one thing you do. Another thing you can do is create programs that people can't resist. In that score, Altman has a very unstable track record. ChatGpt scored 100 million sign-ups in the first two months, but the momentum has slowed down. Recently, about 5% of people on the planet are active users. Although new “inference” iterations like 4o have not yet been caught, programmer-oriented O1 shows no lack of problems. Meanwhile, the quest for AGI has little scientific evidence and we are approaching machine intelligence that quickly coincides with human perfect reasoning ability.
The main factor in these systems is to not yet fully weave ourselves into the hourly fabric. It is true that device porn is an inevitable part of new consumer adoption. But more importantly, what most industrial psychologists believe is that they can do us. And for all the nibble around life edges of apps based on Openai's model (which, very importantly, is largely dependent on others), here so far, has not really revolutionized our existence. There are so many thanks notes and quirky images that you can ask to create an AI program.
The evidence that it's an app that isn't a machine is that past attempts on AI-specific devices, from R1 rabbits to humane AI pins, have so far flop or get very bad reviews. But I think there's more of a problem here. This is how Altman creates a philosophical pivot that cannot be digested even by his own rhetoric. AI is different from previous technological revolutions, Altman said (rightly). Because it doesn't just change what we can do, but how we think.
Personal computers bring digital technology to everyday people, and the internet has connected us to community and information that we have no access to. But if AI is fulfilling its promise, and if it is a big one, it will bring about even more fundamental change than that, introducing a whole new intelligence to live aside our humans. It's much more like alien landings on this planet, even product launches and scientific breakthroughs.
As Altman himself wrote earlier this year (about AGI), this is the beginning of something that is difficult to say, “This time it's different.” The economic growth in front of us looks amazing. And we can imagine a world where we can cure all our illnesses, spend time enjoying ourselves with our family, and fully realize our creative possibilities. “What exists very broadly will not rise or fall based on how cool the device is. I also think there is a shortage of that broad existentialist product, spending $6.5 billion to ensure it's in excellent packaging.
Altman and Ive can feel they are addressing this contradiction and have written about their partnerships in a blog post. “This is an extraordinary moment, and computers now think, think, understand.
Also, in an unrelated note, it is a a bit It's strange that Microsoft didn't show up in all of this. In other words, Openai is primarily supported by companies that manufacture tablets and other devices. You'd think Altman could have given Satya Nadella a call about who he could borrow before going out and someone who could write a $6.5 billion check to Apple Guy.
The AI agent is where Altman expects all this and he may be working on something. It is a kind of fusion of Siri and CAA assistants, accompanied us on every little journey in life. One thing he said in the Guggenheim video he landed on is that essential applications like AI agents need something more clunky than a laptop, but he seemed conveniently forgotten his phone. Google isn't like that, and Gemini, a ChatGpt competitor designed for both Android and iPhone, appears to have made a lot of advances by integrating with the technology we already have, instead of selling what we don't want. (In fact, I think it's not Altman's main driver here that Google can easily bundle itself with its own phone.)
Now, we need to be careful with all our attention on hype, not to fall into something like future myopia. Before Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January 2007, not many people foresee the device in their pocket where we can help us shop, date, job seekers and gamble. But you have been able to understand the appeal of creating those activities, the components of modern existence, and the portability of more. I still don't know if the intelligence of a companion machine is just as convenient or safe in the first place.
It's not that new interfaces are not part of our digital future. The idea that a mobile phone, a rectangle that we read and touch, is a way of doing digital life, is either a technology accident, or at least the result of one of many historic moments. As the world gets more multimodal, silicon valley peaking – finger and screen ideas about speaking, looking, and gestures instead of types become more obsolete.
Altman stands in good company with this belief. Meta's newly renewed Ray-Ban Smart Glasses is an attempt to combine the cloud-based power of AI chatbots with the concrete appeal of fashion accessories. Meanwhile, the Apple Vision Pro is similarly aiming to give it an immersive feeling by wrapping it around your face, rather than falling over your hands. The strangest but most promising of this crop may be Samsung's “Barry.” The much-anticipated robot sphere, set to finally make it to the market this summer, is a kind of home assistant pitched somewhere between a pet and a butler. This is a personalized BB-8 that helps feed your dog, conduct yoga sessions and translate video calls.
But, while non-phone products with all these helps rely on AI in some way, they are not driven by the need to readjust how humanity thinks. Because these two propositions are potentially linked, but exist separately. We may be able to interact with technology more closely and in a different way than we are now (need to have a design like the new Eve), and AI may immediately support us in a way that has never been supported before. Even if both turned out to be true, the idea that the same company leads both claims is hardly incompatible with the history of the past three technologies. IBM created computers, and Microsoft provided desktop programs for them. Apple devices are everywhere and use them to use Google.
Of course, it is Possible That one company can do both. He also seems to have the potential to become an award-winning chef. Technically, no one has stopped Openai. It's exactly all of its resources and its company Raison Drell It oriented towards how machines think about us. Openai requires developers to create models and create apps in new ways that computers can think of. It's not that you can design an addictive machine like the iPhone, but that will make the company successful.
To wonder about Altman's motivations, you could be forgiven given how many times Openai will make an announcement. Like the vintage Terrell Owens, who appears to play football to support press conference habits, Altman can sometimes seem to run a tech company to feed his blog post addiction. The reality is behind the promise.
ive announcements fit the trends. Just like the 2010 iPhone, the sophisticated and attractive AI device in 2030 sounds as great as the incredible economic growth and all of its free time. However, the machine models can't give us that and there is little evidence that Sam Altman or someone else still understands how to build them.
