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Everything We Know About OpenAI's Planned iPhone Rival

Maybe. If it’s something like the device in ‘Her’ - and if ChatGPT is as capable as ‘Her’.

It would need to be a killer product to get people swap their iPhone, galaxy or pixel etc for an OpenAI smartphone.

I just can’t see that happening.

Especially when all the major smartphone vendors are rushing to put Gemini variants (I include Siri) & agents in the smartphone

But I could see people getting a beautifully designed pendant with a camera, speaker, Bluetooth & 5g that they use in conjunction (or independently) with their smartphone.

I could also see them going down the oura or whoop route where you’ll need a subscription to meaningfully use it.
 
It's interesting how people assume immediately that this is true. There is no "planned iPhone Rival" - the premise is wrong, but apparently it's more fun to assume it's true and dunk on OpenAI....
 
That’s one way to get clicks and views - by inserting “iPhone” into the title. You won’t get the same degree of interest by saying “pixel killer” or “Samsung flagship killer”, that’s for sure.

In the end, this device will fail, for the same reason that all “iPhone killers” fail. You are not competing with a single smartphone model, but the entire ecosystem. If openAI hasn’t realised that by now, they will realise the folly of releasing such a device soon enough.
 
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Didn’t FaceBook try this?

It’s too much of a niche device made by a company without a lot of trust. And you have to get people developing for it. Is their play to get regular people to vibe code for it? LMAO.
 
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The more the competition, the better. It just can't be Apple and Google; we need other platforms to help innovate new ideas. Heck, I wish they would let the Chinese phones in the US Market. That concept of having only duopolies is just stupid and will come back to bite the US in the ass.
 
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subjonas said:
I don't think it's a given that everyone should have a highly capable assistant.

The more competent the assistant, the more it is given responsibility, the less the assisted person needs to think or do--and the less the assisted person will think or do. People will utilize the assistant to the fullest of its abilities because people always follow the path of least resistance (so long as it doesn't plainly lead to their demise, and even then sometimes...). So a super competent assistant that can basically run your life for you will result in incompetent people. It happens over time. This bit by bit handing over of more and more thought and decision-making responsibility will eventually cause the assisted person to enter arrested development (and they can even atrophy) in regard to their ability to make decisions, take initiative, and be overall competent in that sphere (eg. daily life). This is especially dangerous if someone begins using the assistant at a young age because then that person won't even have the opportunity to start growing in their competency of that sphere. But for adults, even if one believes they've matured enough in competency and accepts arrested development, the world isn't arrested. Times change and even adults will be left behind. If a super capable assistant takes care of their day-to-day needs, they won't even be aware of how day-to-day things are changing beneath their feet. This will be fine as long as their assistant is there directing them, but if they are ever without it, they will be in a regressed state of immaturity and helplessness.

In my opinion, the only two groups of people who should have a very capable assistant are over-achievers and the handicapped (including the very elderly). Handicapped and very elderly, for obvious reasons. For over-achievers, because they simply need assistance to achieve more than one human's worth of achievement. This loss at some level in their day-to-day competence is just a necessary sacrifice in order to achieve at a higher level because there are finite hours in the day.

But for a person who only has the drive to achieve one human's worth of achievement or less (and I think this is most people), they don't require assistance--they only want assistance to make their life easier and have more time for themselves. Of course they do, who doesn't want that? But the price they would be paying, likely unwittingly, would be very very high.

We're coming to an unprecedented time in human history where we even need to think about these supposed hypotheticals. And make no mistake, it is unprecedented. Machines, automation, internet--all technology before this made our lives easier (and harder in some ways), but they never thought and made decisions for us, which one could say is the thing that makes humans unique. We're coming upon something very different.
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Indeed, it is unprecedented because machines, automation etc. so far were no less and no more than tools — AI not only assists, it “aspires” to compete with and downgrade the human brain.

Looking at the potential of nuclear weapon hardware for destruction at a catastrophic scale, I see AI as the software equivalent of tbe nuclear threat to life. Whereas the latter is held in check by international treaties, laws, and constant monitoring, we are given access to and are subjected to AI with little or no regulation. Nuclear tests were conducted underground or in unpopulated areas to shield us from radiation (not entirely as was learned later). The opposite of a controlled approach is the case with consumer AI which is being implemented via daily inundation while we are still waiting for a concerted and politically supported scientific evaluation of its potential for harming social and psychological development. If this continues, I wonder, for example, if we will be seeing generative and agentic consumer AI induced forms of dementia with middle-aged people in 20 years from now.

Thanks much (highlights bold-faced) for your insightful comment on ChrisA’s rosy-eyed vision. I was lucky twice this week to have benefitted from someone like you who put into words some of my most pressing societal concerns of the time. The first instance was the NPR interview with Chris Murphy on his book The Crisis of the Common Good.
 
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Having seen the industry go in the direction opposite of what I proposed in 1996, I'm never going to say "never".

BUT...

Let's go back to Alan Kay's famous axiom... "People who are really serious about software should build their own hardware."

What software is OpenAI serious about? AI. That's it. They aren't serious about anything else.. and that should concern anyone who buys a device from them. Who is paying for those ever expanding datacenters pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per day? You and your $800 phone? LOL no. It's every marketer lining up to consume your digital footprint that are going to make bank for OpenAI (theoretically).

If Google's replacement of already less-meaningful search algorithms is any indication, what user experience is OpenAI going to provide? Here I'm not going to speculate. I'm only going to say that OpenAI already has a conflict of interest because the user here is the product, not the consumer. There is no motivation therefore for OpenAI to do right by the user.
 
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eifelbube said:
Indeed, it is unprecedented because machines, automation etc. so far were no less and no more than tools — AI not only assists, it “aspires” to compete with and downgrade the human brain.

Looking at the potential of nuclear weapon hardware for destruction at a catastrophic scale, I see AI as the software equivalent of tbe nuclear threat to life. Whereas the latter is held in check by international treaties, laws, and constant monitoring, we are given access to and are subjected to AI with little or no regulation. Nuclear tests were conducted underground or in unpopulated areas to shield us from radiation (not entirely as was learned later). The opposite of a controlled approach is the case with consumer AI which is being implemented via daily inundation while we are still waiting for a concerted and politically supported scientific evaluation of its potential for harming social and psychological development. If this continues, I wonder, for example, if we will be seeing generative and agentic consumer AI induced forms of dementia with middle-aged people in 20 years from now.

Thanks much (highlights bold-faced) for your insightful comment on ChrisA’s rosy-eyed vision. I was lucky twice this week to have benefitted from someone like you who put into words some of my most pressing societal concerns of the time. The first instance was the NPR interview with Chris Murphy on his book The Crisis of the Common Good.
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Absolutely, I share the same thoughts and concerns.

One thing about tools--we know exactly how they work. We don't know exactly how AI works.

But here's the other side of the problem. If AI becomes the super intelligent agent/assistant that companies and enthusiasts aspire it to be, then in that future scenario the less any individual decides to use it, the more at a disadvantage they will be competitively with other people who do decide to use it in their careers, in getting their kids ahead, etc. This is the underlying reason for AI's existential threat. It's not that people can't unplug AI, it's that they won't want to. They won't want to give up time, money, advantage--all the things AI could give them. And they'll either accept the price of losing autonomy that comes with it, or they'll be in denial of the price. Either way, many will go willingly into the proverbial fire.

In my opinion, unless AI hits some sort of wall soon, the only way out of this bleak future is if governments come together and put major restrictions on the development and use of AI (just like with nuclear weapons, as you said). Otherwise, the world in maybe a generation or two will be run by AI "users" who will gradually be losing their own personal intelligence and agency. I put users in quotes because if the AI is smarter than the user in every way that matters, then the user will essentially be carrying out its orders (to the user's benefit), and then who is using whom? It's easy to deny that possibility now while AI still has so many limitations, but if and when it becomes truly smart and we see first hand how it can grant someone "the good life", these questions and concerns will become much more real to people, I hope.
 
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subjonas said:
… Otherwise, the world in maybe a generation or two will be run by AI "users" who will gradually be losing their own personal intelligence and agency. I put users in quotes because if the AI is smarter than the user in every way that matters, then the user will essentially be carrying out its orders (to the user's benefit), and then who is using whom?
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Suffice to say that the dependency on technology that society needs to function would increase significantly from what it already is today. Countries going to war in 20 years or so, would not have to kill people to gain control over territory, rather they target the data center infrastructure, i.e. the AI backbone. A society with little “personal intelligence and agency” left, can be easily controlled. Also much more efficient, “cleaner” than nuclear weapons because there is no radiation threat.
 
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