alt.hn

5/22/2025 at 5:49:41 AM

What Sam Altman Told OpenAI About the Secret Device He's Making with Jony Ive

 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/what-sam-altman-told-openai-about-the-secret-device-hes-making-with-jony-ive-f1384005

by mfiguiere

5/22/2025 at 8:54:51 AM

Surely at this point people should be demanding of Altman "Show don't tell".

by HacklesRaised

5/23/2025 at 7:44:27 AM

The idea is DOA. All one needs to do is replace "companion" with "spy", or "Jexi".

No one with a brain is going to be willing to allow that kind of chaos into their lives.

by trod1234

5/23/2025 at 8:46:53 AM

>>"Altman told OpenAI staff that stealth will be important for their ultimate success to avoid competitors copying the product before it’s ready."

How is this not a red flag to anyone? Are we past reality already to this point? Like, how can you claim you're gonna do something so incredibly revolutionary and at the same time fall for the worst trait a VC would spot in a wannabe startupper -- thinking that the incredible originality of your idea is your moat?

ChatGPT is a success story as much as it concerns brand and distribution, and this product could be the same, but Altman is admitting clearly that they have zero moat in this. This could be copied by anyone as long as they hear the idea? Seriously?

by camillomiller

5/22/2025 at 8:21:19 AM

> While Apple and Google have struggled to keep pace with AI innovations, many investors see the two companies—whose software runs nearly all the world’s smartphones—as the primary means through which billions of people will access AI tools and chatbots. Building a device is the only way OpenAI and other artificial-intelligence companies will be able to interact with consumers directly.

Openai is Microsoft, for the better and the worst, and Microsoft is windows computer.

They already kind of implemented chatgpt to billion of consumer with Microsoft recall and all the other ai feature in office, paint and so on.

by aucisson_masque

5/22/2025 at 12:46:50 PM

I just don’t get what they could be making. Phones are already a perfected form factor for mobile computing. They have screens, microphones, cameras. Why would you need to reinvent form factor for an “AI computer”? And how will it compete for space in peoples’ pockets. They aren’t going to carry around two devices that need charging.

by cedws

5/22/2025 at 5:06:17 PM

From the article:

"The product will be capable of being fully aware of a user's surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one's pocket or on one's desk"

"Ive and Altman's intent is to help wean users from screens. Altman said that the device isn't a pair of glasses, and that Ive had been skeptical about building something to wear on the body."

> They aren’t going to carry around two devices that need charging.

Remember when we said the same things about laptops? And then cell phones?

by gffrd

5/23/2025 at 8:23:26 AM

But smartphones compacted several other devices you may want to carry and provided a bunch of other new capabilities. An AI device isn't bringing any new capabilities, you can already call an Uber or find local restaurants on your smartphone. If it doesn't have a screen, it's just a lower bandwidth mode of interaction to do things you can already do. As for productivity, without a screen it will be useless.

by cedws

5/22/2025 at 2:48:24 PM

Probably a bad sign for imminent AGI. Why spend any time or money on this when you need to get to AGI before your competitors?

by roywiggins

5/23/2025 at 8:48:34 AM

Well you have your answer right there. Smokes and AI mirrors.

by camillomiller

5/22/2025 at 8:53:29 PM

I bet it’s a watch or a ring.

by thebruce87m

5/22/2025 at 5:04:41 PM

"We both got excited about the idea that, if you subscribed to ChatGPT, we should just mail you new computers, and you should use those," Altman said.

Interesting …

by gffrd

5/22/2025 at 6:31:54 AM

In what unfathomable configuration of the world are

- the quality of the output of OpenAI models good enough;

- the target user group broad enough;

- the interest of people in AI-based devices and AI functionality high enough;

- OpenAI’s hardware experience and Joni’s team supply chain experience good enough;

… to guarantee even a tiny sliver of success to the absolute best chatGPT-based product these two will make?

by camillomiller

5/22/2025 at 7:28:00 AM

Devils advocate. It's not hard to see how this could succeed if you don't indicate on today, or a humane AI pin/Rabbit device.

1. I would imagine they believe their models will continue to get better at the rate they have been. Which would make a lot of things possible. e.g. imagine this https://simonwillison.net/2024/Oct/31/cerebras-coder/ with two generations better than what OpenAI has now. (I am talking about the speed, not the coding or interface) I can think of ALOT of things I would use a device for that would do that.

2. intersection of 1.4 billion iPhone users and 800 million ChatGPT users.

3. This is an unknown, like asking what the interest is for AirBnB, Uber or the iPhone. Obvious now but very smart people said their was 0 market. Similar to people thinking an AI device is a Humane Pin

4. remains to be seen, I would say Joni's team has the hardware experience and you can hire the supply chain people.

by motoxpro

5/22/2025 at 7:40:06 AM

Great take, thanks.

1. There is a lot of belief in this, and not much science. If anything studies are saying the opposite.

2. Not sure I follow. They want to make a "third core device", so they'd like to add themselves to the digital life you already have. Good luck with that too?

3. Well, true, but not what market research says so far with AI being not at all the sales driver a lot of companies would think it was.

4. Fair enough.

I would also add that for me there is another fundamental phylosophical issue: former visionaries clearly had ideas that defied the status quo, and what people (like me in this case) were quick to dismiss as impossible. That said, their visions always were intended to make the world A BETTER PLACE. Even Steve Jobs, as business oriented as he was, he always wanted to make a dent in the Universe (as selfish and naive as that might be), or make computers that everyone could use. How is Sam Altman aligned to this tenet enough to convince someone like Joni to call him a real visionary, and work with him? This escapes me, because for all I've known and (thoroughly researched), Altman just has the self-aggrandizing and narcissistic traits of Jobs without all the positives that made him Steve Jobs.

I'm somewhat worried that, to an extent, Altman's Kool Aid is so potent it could even turn someone like Ive into a believer.

by camillomiller

5/22/2025 at 6:45:59 AM

Whatever it is, we know it will be severely lacking in ports

by csto12

5/22/2025 at 7:06:37 AM

you're charging it wrong!

by camillomiller

5/22/2025 at 7:49:43 AM

Are they going to build a consumer device or one for the B2B market? I can totally see a niche for them selling to businesses but that wouldn't likely need a designer like Ive?

by weinzierl

5/22/2025 at 12:20:39 PM

TFA article heavily implies consumer, situating it as a device as important to someone as a MacBook or an iPhone.

by pgwhalen