- Altman and Ive say their AI gadget will be here in less than two years
- It will bring a calmer vibe than other current technologies
- It will know everything about you
Can a tech product be like a ‘cabin by a lake’? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman certainly thinks so. Altman and former Apple design maven Jony Ive shared this week with Laurene Powell Jobs perhaps more than ever before about the eagerly anticipated AI product coming from their joint company: IO.
While we still don’t know much of anything about the mysterious AI product, it is clear that the new gadget will be different from most consumer electronics available today. Altman commented, during a chat with Ive and Powell Jobs at Emmerson Collective Demo Day, that while the iPhone, which Ive designed, is “the crowning achievement of consumer products,” most of today’s devices and apps seem to fall short of that mark.
They make Altman 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, tension going here, people bumping into me like noise is going off. And it’s an unsettling thing, you know, it’s like bright stuff, flashing notifications come in, like dopamine chasing here and there, and short attention spans.”
By contrast, Altman said the device they’re building has enough contextual awareness not to bother you. Instead, it would know when to ask for information, when to present information. “And it does have just this incredible contextual awareness of your whole life. You can then go for a vibe that is not like walking through Times Square and getting bumped into and having all this stuff compete for your attention. But, like, sitting in the most beautiful cabin by a lake and in the mountains and sort of just enjoying the peace and calm.”
That “vibe” as Altman. described it, is coming soon-ish.
Powell Jobs pressed for the timeframe for when we might finally see this mystery device, asking if it might be in five years.
“Much sooner than that,” started Ive. Powell asked, “Two?” and Ive followed, “I think even less than that.”
Simple and wearable?
That’s surprising, considering recent reports that claimed the pair were struggling with the device.
If there’s anything else to be gleaned from this chat, it’s that this AI-rich product, which we expected to be filled with the latest GPT models, will know everything about you, and it aims to be unfussy, possibly even simple.
Ive tried to make his intentions clear: “I can’t bear products that are like a dog wagging their tail in your face, or products that are so proud that they solve the complicated problem, they want to remind you of how hard it was. I love solutions that teeter on the appearing almost naive, in their simplicity. And I also love incredibly intelligent, sophisticated products that you want to touch.”
Or wear. Most believe that Altman and Ive are building a wearable device that will be approximately the size of an old iPod shuffle. Surely, as Altman put it, to “know everything about you,” it needs the situational awareness that comes with being attached to your clothing or person and facing the world as you see it.
Alman added that early on in their collaboration, Ive said that whatever the final product does, “We’re going to make people smile. We’re going to make people feel joy.”
For an AI product, that may be a tall order. After all, most people approach the advent of generative AI and chatbots with a mixture of happiness and terror. They love the quick, witty answers, summaries, and artwork they can get from ChatGPT, but are also concerned about how the technology might take their jobs or, when it reaches Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), take over the world.
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