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Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, is reportedly seeking funding for an AI-powered, personal device – perhaps not unlike the Humane AI Pin – and ex-Apple design guru Jony Ive is apparently getting involved as well.
This is as per The Information (via MacRumors), and the rumor is that Altman and Ive have started a “mysterious company” together to make the device a reality. The report doesn't mention much about the hardware, except to say it won't look like a smartphone.
As we've seen with the Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1, having an AI assistant running on a device means you don't necessarily need a display and traditional apps – the artificial intelligence engine can do everything for you, no tapping or scrolling required.
Altman and Ive are said to be seeking around $ 1 billion in funding, so this is clearly a major undertaking we're talking about. It's not clear how much involvement OpenAI would have, but its ChatGPT bot would most likely be used on the new device.
Previous rumors
This hasn't come completely out of the blue: back in September The Financial Times reported that Altman and Ive were “in talks” to get funding for a new project from SoftBank, a Japanese investment company.
SoftBank has a stake in CPU company Arm, which might be tapped to provide components for the hardware – which can't run entirely on AI cloud magic of course. All this is speculation for the time being, however.
In January, Sam Altman was spotted touring around a Samsung chip factory, so all the indications are that he's planning something in terms of physical hardware. It remains to be seen just how advanced this hardware is though.
During his time with Apple, Jony Ive led the design teams responsible for the iPod, iPhone, iPad and MacBook, so whatever is in the pipeline, we can expect it to look stylish. We can also expect to hear more about this intriguing device in the years ahead.