Altman describes OpenAI’s forthcoming AI device as more peaceful and calm than the iPhone

“When people see it, they say, ‘Is that it?… It’s that simple.’

That’s how OpenAI CEO Sam Altman describes how he thinks people will react when they first see the company’s upcoming AI hardware device.

The device is the result of a collaboration between OpenAI and Apple’s former chief designer Jony Ive. Not much is known about the product yet, except that it is rumored to be ‘screenless’ pocket size.

Earlier this year, OpenAI acquired Ive’s design startup, io, to bring AI to the masses via tech gadgets. This weekend, Altman and Ive talked more about their vision for their AI device in an interview moderated by Laurene Powell Jobs at the 9th Annual Emerson Collective Meeting. Demo day in San Francisco.

While OpenAI isn’t sharing details 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, calling the Apple smartphone the “crowning achievement of consumer products to date.” He said he could define his life as the time before the iPhone and after.

However, Altman complained that modern technologies are full of distractions.

“When I use today’s devices or most applications, I feel like I’m walking through Times Square in New York and I’m constantly dealing with all the little indignities along the way – flashing lights in my face… people bumping into me, like sound is going out, and that’s a disturbing thing,” he said. The bright, flashing notifications and dopamine-chasing social apps are where today’s devices are going wrong, Altman believes.

“I don’t think it makes our lives peaceful and calm and we can just concentrate on our things,” he said.

The AI ​​device’s atmosphere, meanwhile, would be more like “sitting in the most beautiful cabin on a lake and in the mountains and just enjoying the peace and tranquility,” Altman noted.

The device he described would need to be able to filter things for the user, because the user would rely on the AI ​​to do things for them for extended periods of time. It also needs to be contextually aware of when it is the best time to present information to the user and ask for input.

“You trust it over time, and it just has this incredible contextual awareness of your entire life,” Altman added.

I confirmed at the event that the device should be available within two years.

“I like solutions that seem almost naive in their simplicity,” Ive told Powell Jobs in the interview. “And I also like incredibly intelligent, cutting-edge products that you want to touch, and you don’t feel intimidated, and you want to use them almost casually — that you use them almost without thinking — that they’re just tools,” he said.