An 'iPhone of AI' Makes No Sense. Jony Ive Needs To Carefully Construct The Whole Damn System

In the past week or so, we've had a logo upgrade, a big New York Times profile, and a Moncler outerwear collaboration from LoveFrom, Jony Ive and Marc Newson's San Francisco–headquartered design studio. The real news, though, is confirmation that LoveFrom is working with OpenAI's founder Sam Altman to build a secretive as-yet-unnamed AI device with investors including Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective, and Ive himself. The former Apple chief design officer is sometimes gently mocked for his obsession with seemingly small details, but when it comes to a potential mainstream human-AI interface, the man who has spent the past five years preoccupied with buttons--going so far as to create a five-volume history of garment fasteners--could be, in a somewhat inevitable way, the exact kind of person required to walk this particular tightrope of ethics and ambition. Details so far are scarce but revealing, at least where intentions are concerned. LoveFrom is designing "a product that uses AI to create a computing experience that is less socially disruptive than the iPhone."