Speculate with me. I have a feeling (oooOOO) about a life changing AI development coming next year.

I know, I know. My eyes rolled out of my head long ago from AI vaporware announcements.

But this isn’t an announcement, it’s a prophecy.

OpenAI recently announced a merger with io. A hardware and design firm by Jony Ive, the mind behind Apple’s best products.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, promises an “iPhone moment” for AI. A device that lets us use artificial intelligence without a screen.

Join me in exploring this theory, uh, prophecy…

—Steve 🤖

Get the weekly email that explains science in sweatpants. Stay smart for free.

AI Earbuds

Most tech enthusiasts believe OpenAI and io are launching either:

• A pendant

• A pin

Problem is, most of us don’t wear pendants or pins. And no one wants an AI-buddy dangling from their neck all day.

What do we wear? Earbuds. Walk down any city block and you’ll see countless people interacting with someone in their ear. We’re already trained to use the product.

Jony and Sam just need to give it to us.

Apparently Sam Altman’s favorite movie is “Her”. A story about a man’s romantic feelings towards his AI operating system. While this feels a bit too on the nose, it’s integral to my earbud prophecy.

You see, many moons ago I worked at Amazon managing an Alexa team. You wouldn’t believe the redacted or even this time they redacted. Tales for another time. What’s important here is that Jeff Bezos was inspired to create Alexa by Star Trek’s “computer” advanced AI assistant.

So much so, that one of Alexa’s wake words is “computer”, for anyone (Jeff) that wants to nerd out.

Modern AI has trivialized a lot of the work that made smart speakers extraordinary. The sheer human-hours required to keep up with consumer demands was infamously not profitable.

Sure some of that was poor internal accounting and budgeting, but a lot of it was the result of creating groundbreaking technology that consumers used primarily for weather reports and fart jokes.

Sound familiar?

I’m not ripping on Jeff or Sam’s pet projects. I’m trying to prove two points:

1. Smart rich people will spend a lot of money to make their dreams come true

2. I worked at Amazon and appreciate fart jokes

So Sam will get his AI assistant. And just like Joaquin Phoenix’s character in Her, Sam will be able to take this AI everywhere. It will listen to everything and be ready to discuss anything they’ve experienced together.

But unlike a smart speaker or Scarlett Johansson, Sam’s AI will speak only to him while nestled in his ear.

We’ve established that pendants/pins won’t work, money buys happiness gadgets, and you already know how to interact with a voice inside your ear.

Now we get to channel our inner James Bond.

Whether or not you believe your phone is always listening (it’s not, at least, not like that) it’s a little unnerving to think OpenAI will literally hear everything you ever do while wearing their headphones.

Also, it’s unlikely to be profitable (possible?) to house all that computing power in an earbud. So our phone will do the heavy lifting while connected to OpenAI/io’s proprietary ear-whisperers.

Just like 007 chatting with Q about something in a cool accent, we’ll be able to activate our AI assistant by tapping our earpiece. One-tap acts like Amazon or Google’s “wake word” and two-taps tells the AI to shut down.

Some use-cases:

• “Remind me what I was supposed to get at the store today.”

• “Summarize that meeting, I was zoning out looking at myself on screen.”

• “Tell me the weather for tomorrow, but make it a fart joke.”

I think so.

We haven’t even delved into the design genius of Jony Ive. This post is long enough, so, briefly:

I only just converted to iPhone despite being old enough to be bullied for not having one when they first launched. But I’m far from alone in being a longtime fan of Ive’s design work. Obviously his team will draw up a sleek piece of hardware you want to use.

If I was trying to maximize AI’s potential, I’d make it as seamless and portable as possible.

If OpenAI isn’t working on earbuds, they’re missing out. (call me 📞)

New to the casualSTEM?

Get the weekly email that explains science in sweatpants. Stay smart for free.

Missed last week’s science in sweatpants?

Catch-up here: 🔬Traffic Hawk | Red Eyes | CRISPR Spider