Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / AI hardware company from Jony Ive, Sam Altman seeks $1 billion

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AI hardware company from Jony Ive, Sam Altman seeks $1 billion · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast.
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  Thank you so much. Joni I've previously from Apple
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  and Sam Altman of Open AI are currently designing something
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  interesting. Now Joni I've one of the
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  absolute best industrial designers used to work at Apple.
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  All the products that we use now, iPhones, iPads, everything
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  had Joni's handprints on it, and his ideas are amazing.
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  And the way that he designs things absolutely brilliantly.
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  Sam Altman of Open AI, great business person, very
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  intellectual person. Open AI is revolutionizing the
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  way that we use AI in every single facet of society.
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  And they're building something together.
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  They're trying to secure a billion dollars in funding for
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  this venture. Now this is wild, but they aim
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  to develop an AI integrated personal device.
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  It's going to have very distinct design and functionality is
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  going to be similar to smartphones that we have now.
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  Now the Information broke this story and they said that in 2023
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  after the initial disclosure from the information that
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  they're working on something. We don't have many specifics
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  right now. It's all undisclosed, it's all
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  behind closed doors and there's curiosity about its design and
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  capabilities too. The developments have been under
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  discussion since 2023, I think increasing momentum towards
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  actualizing of the concept. Right now, the collaboration
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  between I've and Altman combines significant expertise in design
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  and AI, suggesting hopefully a new groundbreaking product is on
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  the horizon. Now we've seen similar designs
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  to the iPhone. Almost every smartphone now
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  looks very similar to an iPhone. And that's because Johnny Joni,
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  I've sorry I keep saying Johnny, but Joni, I've was way ahead of
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  the curve here. But Joni and Sam have engaged
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  with several potential investors right now to reach their
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  substantial funding target, a billion dollars.
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  They're going to hire the greatest minds in AI and design
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  and engineering to come together and build this amazing device,
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  whatever it is. And their discussions have
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  included Thrive Capital, known for its investments, repeat
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  investments, mind you in Open AI, and Emerson Collective
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  established by Lorene Powell Jobs Now These talks indicate a
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  broad search for financial backing to support the ventures
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  ambitious goals that Joni Ive is behind it.
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  Something spectacular is on the horizon.
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  The potential for something spectacular is on the horizon.
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  We don't know how this thing is going to turn out.
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  Also SoftBank, a CEO of SoftBank is another prominent figure in
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  the tech sector and it's possibly interested in investing
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  in this new format for interacting with yourself, your
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  data, the environment. We don't know what this thing is
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  yet, though this is all speculation.
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  The involvement of the CEO from SoftBank suggests a possible
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  link to ARM ARM microprocessors. It's a company that he supports.
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  It's high profile nature of this endeavor is if they get a chip
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  company on board, they're going to do something absolutely
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  amazing. If they can do custom chips,
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  that's probably why they need the billion dollars too.
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  They have to go through all the engineering to make prototypes
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  and the whole gambit of things they have to run through.
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  And not just alpha software, but beta software and also full
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  release software. But also they have to do a lot
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  of testing with the hardware and the software together to make
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  sure everything functions very well.
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  And they have to keep it at a price point that people would
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  actually buy out. Yeah, right now an iPhone is
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  around a, let's say, 700 to $1000.
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  And if this device is similar to the iPhone, like what it can
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  accomplish? Check your e-mail, listen to
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  music. What are the normal things that
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  you do every day? Check maps, get an Uber and get
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  food delivered to you? Whatever it is, if this device
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  can do that and it's smaller than iPhone, you don't have to
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  take it out of your pocket. It's clipped to you somewhere.
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  Or maybe it's a ring. I don't know.
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  And it I don't know what it is and we have no idea.
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  Nobody really knows. Then would you buy it for 700
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  dollars, $800? That's an ambitious goal for a
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  price, but there's a possibility that it could be around that
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  price. If it's a small device and it
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  could do things that are similar to an iPhone but doesn't have
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  the capabilities of a screen, isn't worth that much money,
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  though. You have to think about that
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  too. But they want to raise a billion
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  dollars, build the chips, build the software.
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  You need bright people to do all of those things and managing the
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  company and AI everything. So let's go back to the
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  information. If you're not familiar with the
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  information is they break a lot of tech stories and they have
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  people on the inside. They know everybody in Silicon
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  Valley. They have some insiders that
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  come through with some very reputable information.
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  That's why they're called The Information now.
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  They say that the device excused traditional designs, potentially
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  offering a novel user experience.
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  They're looking into screenless interfaces.
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  Sam Altman wants to have creative, intuitive, less
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  distracting technology, and I think Joni, I've was on the
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  precipice of something. Let's not talk about the Apple
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  Pencil, though. Can we?
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  Or the way that the Apple mouse charges?
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  Let's not talk about those two things.
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  Those are horrible, horrible designs.
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  I don't know if Joni, I've had anything to do with that, but if
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  he did, Joni, you did a horrible thing to humanity for
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  introducing those two ways of charging things, The way to
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  charge an Apple Pencil and the way to charge an Apple mouse.
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  Horrible designs. But this new design hopefully
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  screen this interface and it's going to be very intuitive.
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  It's going to be very novel. It's supposed to leverage open
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  AI's ChatGPT or some version of that or some sort of something
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  with the large language model. And they're going to be
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  integrating advanced AI capabilities with this device
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  now. Between I've designed prowess
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  and Altman's AI expertise, they could redefine personal
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  computing devices. Think about how much money Apple
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  makes just from iPhone sales and software sales.
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  I've's previous contributions to Apple's iconic products in his
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  post Apple venture love form show that he has a deep
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  commitment to innovation in design and functionality, even
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  though he's been gone from Apple for a long time now.
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  And the project's ambition is evident in the recruitment of
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  Tank Tan, a former Apple executive, to lead Hardware
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  Engineering. Now, this venture's commitment
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  to high quality design and engineering could draw upon
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  Tan's experience with Apple's product lineup.
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  They have to the right people, in the right places, doing the
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  right things in order to produce an amazing device that people
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  would actually want to use and wear.
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  Now, there's an ongoing debate, though, about the role of AI in
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  enhancing productivity while minimizing distractions.
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  Previous AI devices have promised efficiency without the
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  pitfalls of conventional smartphones, but real world
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  effectiveness and security concerns remain to be addressed
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  comprehensively. Just hear me out for a moment.
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  If you ask your device that's connected to Open AI to look up
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  somebody's phone number or to give your information, any sort
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  of information, let's just dial it back here.
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  Any sort of information. Do you want Open AI to have your
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  information or do you want it to be encrypted?
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  I would go for encrypted. Nobody needs to know if I'm
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  having one of those nights and I need a pizza at 3:00 in the
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  morning. Nobody needs to know what, like
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  where I go or anything like that.
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  Same with you. I'm sure I'm most people don't
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  really worry about them. That's not.
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  I don't really worry about it, but I don't think a company
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  should have all of my specific data for things that I for where
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  I go and what I do though. I have an iPhone and I'm
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  probably tracked all the time anyway.
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  I have googled Google on my iPhone, so I'm pretty sure ads
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  are being forced to me through Google.
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  Because the things that I say or the things that I search, there
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  are trade-offs. This little device, it's
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  supposed to be smaller than an iPhone, will be able to do all
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  that, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what they'll be
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  able to do, but I'm pretty sure everything will go up to the
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  cloud anyway. They'll be able to process
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  things in the cloud as opposed to on your device.
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  So maybe that's where they're going to be doing their
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  processing. Maybe they're going to have
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  server farms, GPU farms, etcetera that will be handling
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  all this computation. Now the feasibility and the
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  impact of such AI power devices are still under scrutiny though.
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  Nobody's made anything like this before.
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  Questions about their practicality, user experience
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  and data security linger, and that's the challenge for Ivan
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  Altman's project going ahead. There's a lot of problems,
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  actually a lot of things to solve the funding of a billion
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  dollars. With high profile investors like
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  SoftBank, it's potentially significant.
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  In the tech industry. The involvement of such
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  influential figures could shape the project's direction and its
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  technological foundations, particularly with arms potential
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  involvement as well. And the project's conception
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  involving brainstorming Session I of San Francisco Studio
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  indicate a hands on approach to defining the devices, core
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  features and user experience. If you get together with
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  somebody, there's a lot that can be done that you cannot do over
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  Zoom. Real time collaboration in
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  person is a lot different than real time collaboration on Zoom
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  or any other. Their meeting app.
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  I'm glad they met up. I'm glad they can brainstorm
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  traditionally one-on-one or with their team to pound this out
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  because it sounds like an amazing thing and the goal is to
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  develop an intuitive user interface that transcends
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  conventional computing paradigms.
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  Most like the iPhone revolutionized mobile Internet
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  access. If you remember back then phones
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  didn't really have the Internet. And when they did have the
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  Internet it was expensive and it was basic text.
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  There wasn't a lot of websites that were developed.
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  There weren't any apps really, just apps that came with your
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  T-Mobile phone or whatever. But no real apps for the
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  Internet back then, not compared to like now everything has.
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  Every phone has 5000 apps on it. It's a lot different time.
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  And what kind of apps would they use on a small device that they
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  don't really want to interfere with your life?
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  We'll see. We'll see in the future.
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  But this project is still in his formative stages of course, with
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  various ideas being considered the complexity of creating a new
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  device category. This is everything.
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  It's a whole new thing. Means that the venture might
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  take years to materialize into a market ready product and this
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  could be a long term vision behind this initiative.
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  Ivy's concerns about the addictive nature of smartphones
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  and their unintended consequences have been well
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  documented. That's why he's going forth with
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  this venture. This project with open AI offers
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  a chance to address these issues.
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  But developing a less screen dependent method of interaction
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  potentially mitigating some of the negative aspects of modern
• 10:22
  technology use. Hey, thank you so much for
• 10:24
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• 10:51
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