What are we missing?
“We are literally on the brink of a new generation of technology that can make us our better selves.”
Last week we got the bombshell news that Jonathan Ive, Apple's famed ex designer had sold his start-up and himself to Open AI for an eye watering $6.5 billion. Named io, and barely a year old, the secretive company has created a yet unrevealed AI companion device.
In a short video heavy with bromance vibes, Sam Altman teased:
“Jony recently gave me one of the prototypes of the device for the first time to take home, and I’ve been able to live with it, and I think it is the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen.”
That is all we know, and while the hype train might be slow to move out of the station, the insane price tag and lack of information has me wondering, what is going on here?
History is replete with cautionary tales of secretive start-ups and huge investments. Recall Magic Leap, the AR head set start-up that raised $3.5 billion and is now on life support. In 2012 the Oculus Rift had galvanized the VR industry and given us a glimpse of what might be possible with full VR headset, yet Oculus was built on a shoe string budget and was always prototype esq. in execution. The enormous sums raised by Magic Leap promised a quantum leap in quality, and when combined with fake promo videos pushed hype to a fever pitch, and then…nothing. The product died quietly, and while technically still in business Magic Leap is now a mere footnote in the VR world, and VR as a sector remains niche rather than mainstream.
Ive and Altman claim to have something the likes we’ve never seen before, but if we’re talking about a “device” with “AI” we surely have, no?
Humane Rabbits
You all know these devices. The Humane AI pin raised $230m, failed and was sold to HP for scraps. The Teenage Engineering designed Rabbit AI, featuring an interface that can only have been designed by a teenager, limps on. Much digital ink has been spilt reviewing these products, and I’m not here to do the same, instead let's look at the absolute fundamentals of a new, standalone device and speculate:
Whatever it does, it will be a third device you must carry, or will live on your desk.
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Whatever it does, its battery will not last longer than your phone, or it will be cabled to a power source.
Whatever it does, it will either have its own sim, with monthly cost or it will connect to your phone/Wi-Fi.
Whatever it does, it will either have a screen, or it won't.
You can break down the form factor by simply filtering devices via battery and screen and see that anything that isn’t a smart speaker or phone gets stuck between the two feature sets.
Humane and Rabbit failed because your phone does, or will do, all the things this new io device will do. We already carry headphones and a phone, both requiring charge. Throw in a smart watch that’s three; to convince consumers to carry a fourth is a huge ask.
In my previous article I touched on our relationships with Alexa; How the need for genuine conversation is moot as each interaction is function driven, an irony surely not lost on Ive as he called his business io, or as I read it: Input / Output. When function is what we want from our assistant, how can they “make us our better selves.”?
I’ve huge respect for Jonathan Ive. Conjure would not exist if he, Jobs and the wider Apple team hadn’t created the iPhone. But when I look at LoveFrom’s Wikipedia page their recent work covers: improving AirBnB’s online offering, designing a luxury Ferrari, creating a new seal for England's current king and working with Linn to make a, *checks notes* a $60,000 turntable.
I love technology. I want whatever Ive and Altman are cooking to be great. But Ive’s recent work with LoveFrom feels more like he’s completing side quests having finished the main story. The cost for io feels like Magic Leap all over again.
Does any of this matter? Maybe not. Both Ive and Altman have earned their places at the top table of tech and the two carving out an AI future will either give us something life changing or they won't. Arthur Schopenhauer said “Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
I want to believe in their genius, I just can’t see it.
What I found interesting about the video was the emphasis on friendship, values and freedom. Specifically "creative freedom and all it’s weirdness." More specifically in SF. Maybe I'm reading a subtext here but it seemed a dig at the current political rhetoric in the US, but I digress… I don't know what they are up to but I have the feeling from the video they have the right component parts to make something human and useful. Expectations set low to not disappoint.
Why didn't the Humane pin work? Was it just too early? I've been using an AI pendant from Limitless for the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, 90% of the time it's buggy and shit. Transcriptions are very unreliable... However, the glimpse into the future that you get from the 10% of the time when it works is mindblowing. I wasn't prepared for the utility of having all interaction audio as material for an LLM to analyse - things like following negotiations with my 6 yo child, I can ask, "how could I have handled that better?" and get really detailed, practical advice is amazing. The post-interaction analysis is an unprecedented superpower that's useful for loads of personal and professional situations... "Did I really say that I'd do X, Y and Z?", "Give me 3 things I handled well today and 3 I could improve", etc, etc. This kind of ambient, always-on audio capture for later analysis is something phones can't really do as the mic needs to be out of pocket. I'm pretty sure that's going to be the differentiator for IO's type of device... something that's passive intelligence gathering rather than active interaction - glasses, pendants, pins, something like that.