The io device is mysterious and important – what could it be?

Jony Ive and Sam Altman yesterday released a strong candidate for most frustrating video of the year: promising a completely new concept in AI hardware, but giving very little clue as to what it might be. I transcribed the video to see whether I could spot any clues, in conjunction with other things the two have said. I think we can draw some pretty safe conclusions about what it’s not – and there are one or two clues about what it is … I argued a year ago that the AI hardware we’ve seen to date is like people trying to invent the iPod after the iPhone. Once we knew that Ive and Altman were working on something, however, I had to temper my skepticism, noting that it would be a brave person who bets against the pair. The only form factor that has so far made any sense to me is smart glasses, but Altman has specifically said that io is not a pair of glasses, while both have also made it clear that it’s not a phone. The pair strongly imply it’s a form factor we haven’t yet seen, which ... Read full article.