I really like OpenAI products. I can certainly appreciate Altman as a company leader (even if there is a dark cloud — and silvery orb — following him seemingly everywhere). Obviously, I admire Sir Jony Ive and most of the products he designed for Apple over the years, easily placing him among the most influential designers ever.
This new merger between Jony Ive’s “io” and OpenAI intrigues me. Whatever the first product to emerge from this is, it already has my attention. We’ll have to wait for now, which is somewhat frustrating and leaves a void in the imagination.
Because we know nothing yet about this upcoming line of products, I keep picturing it as a much-improved Humane AI Pin, wearing a nice and well-designed space grey trench coat.
With the bias of a working professional in the fields of brand communications and copywriting, and without a product to distract me, I could only pay attention to the launch video. My gosh this video is over the top. Everything described in it is superlative: San Francisco, the colleagues, the product, the potential of the product, Jony Ive’s vision, Jony Ive’s family. All incredible, extraordinary, best in the world, amazing, profound. Place a white background behind Ive, and this is an Apple video. A few times while watching it, I thought that it would be very difficult to parody, even though it seems to beg for it.
It’s not often that I disagree with John Gruber, but this is what he wrote:
No details on what yet, but a lovely little 9-minute video on why. […] This is just a vibes teaser, but the vibe is a shot across the bow. It conveys grand ambition, but without pretension.
Lovely? Sure. Conveys grand ambition? Absolutely. Without pretension? I guess there is no pretension per se, but an incredible, extraordinary, amazing, profound enthusiasm (which I think comes from a place of pretension).
This overwhelming enthusiasm gives me a bad signal about the actual products coming out of this. Either the products will indeed be world-changing, and the vocabulary and script will prove to be justified, even if a bit cringe, IMHO; or they are too close to it, drowned in their vision, blinded by their confidence, and lacking a necessary amount of objectivity.
This is what Om Malik wrote about the video:
It is hard to say what that device is because in the nine-minute video accompanying the news of the deal Ive and Altman don’t say anything. The slick video harkens back to Ive’s glory days at Apple when he would talk about the chips, designs, and aluminum on videos extolling the iPhone, the watch, and the laptops. In a way, what he and Altman are indicating, through words, and subliminal marketing, is that we are building the next Apple.
Maybe they really are sitting on products that could position OpenAI to become the next Apple, or maybe there is a pinch of delusion of grandeur in this video and their words. It’s too soon to tell.
Jony Ive’s designs — and arguably OpenAI’s software — are known for their restraint and elegance, but this video is clearly not restrained either aesthetically or lexically, which I find intriguing. I have so many questions about the choices made for this video. Did they purposefully want to contrast everything Jony Ive is known for? Why shoot this in a café? Why is Altman mentioning a laptop and not a smartphone to use ChatGPT? Why go with this sweater, Sam?
It is also worth remembering that not all of Ive’s projects at Apple did well, especially towards the end of his time there, and a lot of people worked with his team of designers (a few now working with him at io). The Apple Watch Edition, butterfly keyboards, the iPhone 5C, the redesign of iOS for iOS 7, and the “trashcan” Mac Pro are examples… The list goes on, so I’ll proceed with caution when it comes to my expectations. The infinite money from OpenAI surely will help though, even if Ive himself won’t join OpenAI (io’s other employees will), but will work as some sort of consultant.
MG Siegler has a good take on this new deal and announcement video:
I’m not sure what it is. It’s 10 minutes of footage that serves to provide context for the deal, gives a glimpse into the relationship between Ive and Sam Altman, acts as a sort of trailer for what’s to come, and is generally a love letter to San Francisco. I still can’t quite wrap my head around it all.
I would say it’s risky from a PR-perspective as it just places an additional layer of hype on top of entities that clearly don’t need any more buzz. But it’s just sort of… nice?
Also, I’ve recently come across this gem of an article in the Financial Times analysing Sam Altman’s kitchen and cooking choices, and nothing in it makes me trust this guy to deliver a great product, or recognise one when he gets to have one in his hands:
Through ignorance or carelessness, when presented with three choices, Altman chooses badly, twice. It’s pointlessly, needlessly profligate.
Don’t get me wrong, I am excited for this upcoming line of products. I am obviously too cynical when it comes to billionaires these days, especially those who still work “late late late into the night” (as Ive says of Altman) and feel the need to make the world know about it. To me, this kind of theatre looks a lot like people who want to prove something, who need to show that they really care about culture and society, but not about money.
Regardless of the products they develop or my opinions about Ive, Altman, or OpenAI, the product remains an unseen prototype. All we have today is a webpage with a concise text that does a much better job of sharing the vision than this superlative-filled, uncomfortable-to-watch video.
I now wonder how this deal will impact Microsoft, which invested a lot in OpenAI, and how it will help OpenAI raise even more money.
