Majority Report

The ad is for a wedding. “Sam & Jony present io,” reads the text, centered in a serif font. It's followed by a black and white photograph of Jony Ive resting his head on Sam Altman's and holding his shoulder. The text that follows is that of two lovers: “May 21, 2025. This is an extraordinary moment.”

The protagonists are well known. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is the techno-entrepreneurial genius who is changing the world with his ChatGPT. A successful serial entrepreneur, he has an extraordinary ability to attract talent and investors. Sir Jonathan Ive is the British designer who was Apple's vice president of industrial design from the late 1990s until 2019. You can see his work on the Apple Watch, iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and the iOS operating system.

The social cost of augmenting intellect with AI is unaffordable.

The romance dates back two years, when Ive began quietly collaborating with OpenAI in the search for new ways to interact with technology. The arrival of intelligent chatbots, capable of understanding voice instructions and responding effectively, was a necessary condition for moving beyond screens.

To put the concept into practice—designing, engineering, and manufacturing a product—Ive created io, a startup that OpenAI has acquired for $6.5 billion in stock. Hence the joy.

The couple's offspring seems assured, and the first ultrasounds have already been leaked: a smart pendant connected to a mobile phone, with cameras and microphones, that records everything that happens. As if it were an extension of our memory, we could ask the phone at any moment for any detail of our recent existence. The challenges are immense. Technological—form, features, design, security—and business; interactions with ChatGPT are extremely costly. How many data centers are needed to serve the 100 million devices that OpenAI wants to distribute? How much will the premium subscription cost?

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I have no doubt that with Ive's industrial design experience and Altman's ability to attract funding, these challenges can be overcome with some success. I have more doubts about the social challenges.

It's impossible to have a normal conversation with someone who's recording us and, on top of that, has an AI behind them analyzing everything live. The famous Google Glass (2013) failed in part because people didn't want to share space with someone who could be recording everything that happened. The AI ​​Pin (2018), a smart lapel device created by two former Apple engineers, has been one of the most notorious flops.

The challenge of OpenAI's new device isn't technological, but social. If Ive succeeds, it will follow the path of the iPhone and become intertwined with our lives. Otherwise, it will end up in the same drawer as Google Glass and the AI ​​Pin.

Everyone is invited to the link.