Receive free OpenAI updates
we will send you myFT Daily Digest Email summary of latest news Open artificial intelligence There is news every morning.
OpenAI is in advanced talks with former Apple designer Sir Jony Ive and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son to form a joint venture to build an “artificially intelligent iPhone,” with more than $1 billion in funding from the Japanese conglomerate.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has hired LoveFrom, the company Ive founded when he left Apple in 2019, to develop the ChatGPT creator’s first consumer device, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Altman and Ive held brainstorming sessions at the designer’s San Francisco studio to discuss what new consumer products centered on OpenAI technology would look like, people familiar with the matter said.
They hope to create a more natural and intuitive user experience for interacting with artificial intelligence, just as the iPhone’s innovations in touch-screen computing unleashed the mass-market potential of the mobile Internet.
They said the process of finalizing a design or device is still in its early stages and there are many different ideas.
SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son has also been involved in some discussions, taking on a central role as a chip designer and providing financial support for Arm, which is 90% owned by the Japanese conglomerate.
Son, Altman and Ive have discussed creating a company to leverage the talent and technology of their three groups, and SoftBank has invested more than $1 billion in the joint venture, people familiar with the matter said.
They warned that discussions were said to be “serious” but no agreement had yet been reached and a formal announcement of the joint venture could take months. Any resulting hardware products may take years to bring to market.
OpenAI, SoftBank and LoveFrom declined to comment. The Information previously reported on some aspects of their product discussions.
Ive played a central role in the creation of the first iPhone, which launched in 2007 and ushered in a new era of personal computing.
But as the smartphone market reaches a plateau, many in Silicon Valley have been thinking about what might become the next big consumer electronics product.
Virtual reality headsets such as Meta’s Quest and smart speakers such as Amazon’s Echo are both considered to have potential. But nothing can compare to the smartphone, which has become a necessity for billions of people.
For Ive, the compulsive behavior of many smartphone users has become a concern. He told the Financial Times in 2018 that Apple had a “moral responsibility” to mitigate the unintended consequences of the iPhone, such as addictive apps, and said he limited children’s screen time.
According to people familiar with his thinking, the project with OpenAI provides an opportunity to create a way to interact with computers that relies less on screens.
This week OpenAI announced an upgrade to its groundbreaking chatbot ChatGPT, including the ability to control applications through voice or uploaded images, and allow it to browse the web.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Microsoft-backed OpenAI is considering a stock sale that would value the San Francisco-based company at as much as $90 billion, increasing its valuation by two billion in less than a year. times.
Svlook
