Famed former Apple designer Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have been working in secret on a screenless device that uses artificial intelligence technology. But what does it look like? How does it work? We still don’t know, but the two dropped a few hints recently.
Ive and Altman, who merged the company IO Products with OpenAI as they work on the project, shared more details about their plans Friday at a conference hosted by Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president of Emerson Collective, a philanthropic investment firm.
Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.
At Emerson Collective’s Demo Day 25 event in San Francisco, the pair discussed their success with a second hardware prototype of the device and said it could be released in two years.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
Anticipation is high for what would be OpenAI’s first-ever hardware product. The hype is boosted by the fact that Ive was the lead designer on such transformative products at Apple as the iPhone, the MacBook and Apple Watch. OpenAI’s most popular AI software, ChatGPT, has about 800 million active weekly users worldwide. It’s likely that the hardware project would incorporate the kinds of things ChatGPT does.
Altman and Ive said that the hardware they’re working on has been the result of extensive exploration and numerous discussions about the implications of a computing device that knows practically everything and that users can carry with them. Altman described the work on the current prototype as “jaw-droppingly good.”
Past reports have suggested that the device Ive and Altman are working on will be about the size of a smartphone, but without a screen. The Demo Day 25 event appears to suggest that it will be simple and fun to operate, and will have more personality than most hardware.
Peaceful, simple and playful
The AI project is said to have a more peaceful feel than some modern devices, although it’s not entirely clear what that means. Altman said that most devices and apps he uses today are noisy and unsettling, but the upcoming device will have a calmer vibe.
He said the product would be intuitive to use and that people would want to touch it.
“I hope when people see it they just say, ‘That’s it,’ ” Altman said, to which Ive added, “They will.”
Altman went on to use words including “simple,” “beautiful,” and “playful” to describe the product.
Ive said that most products don’t have a sense of humor and take themselves too seriously. Altman said he hadn’t realized until he saw the most recent prototype, “how much that just doesn’t exist and how lovely it is to have some whimsy back.”
The talk seemed to refute an October report from the Financial Times suggesting that Ive faced trouble behind the scenes in creating the product.
