In 2019, the former Apple designer, John Ive, has founded a company called "LoveFrom". OpenAI Chief Altman has tapped Ive to create the OpenAI's first consumer device, according to three people familiar with the plan.
Citing people familiar with the plan, the FT report further revealed that Ive and Altman are aiming to create a device that provides a “more natural and intuitive user experience” to interact with artificial intelligence.
Jony Ive left Apple, in 2019, to cofound a creative agency, LoveFrom, with his friend and long-time collaborator Marc Newson. Based out of San Francisco and London, it is a design company which has many of the employee who are ex-Apple. Being very secretive about its operations, the design company has only taken a handful of clients and only few products have been publicized yet.
Notably, Ive has previously expressed concerns about compulsive behavior related to smartphone usage.
Ive and OpenAI Chief have held brainstorming sessions, along with Masayoshi Son present in some of these sessions, at the LoveFrom's San Francisco studio. The brainstorming talks was about what a new consumer product centred on OpenAI’s technology would look like.
Masayoshi, the SoftBank’s founder and CEO, has pitched in Arm, the semiconductor designing giant, to play the central role. Arm is London-based chip designing giant and SoftBank’s portfolio firm with 90% stake in it. Arm recently went public and oversubscribed by 10 times.
The discussion, said to be very serious, is yet to materialise and could be several months before any venture is formally announced. Any resulting hardware product is likely to take years to bring to market.
Once taking a shape, this would be a milestone in the world of technology, bringing four Disruptors — OpenAI, LoveFrom, Softbank and Arm — on one podium, for one hardware device.
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