OpenAI president Greg Brockman recently did an interview with Joanna Stern, where he commented on the lawsuit OpenAI is facing from Apple and talked about OpenAI’s product plans.
Brockman reiterated what OpenAI has already said on the record, stating that the company is “plenty innovative” and uninterested in other companies’ trade secrets.
I would say that we have no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We are plenty innovative. We are thinking about things from our own angle. And so that’s how we operate and that’s what we do.
He also said OpenAI is working on its own long-term product plans.
It’s active litigation, so not something that I want to talk about, but all I can say is we’re very committed to a long-term roadmap here and that we are focused on our own development and technology. That’s what we’re interested in.
Apple accused OpenAI of a months-long scheme to steal confidential Apple information from Apple employees interviewing with OpenAI. Apple said OpenAI has created a culture of hardware theft, and that its hardware business is “rotten to the core” because the hardware it’s building relies on info stolen from Apple. OpenAI’s products are being developed with former Apple designer Jony Ive, though Ive wasn’t named in the lawsuit.
Brockman declined to say when OpenAI’s first hardware devices will come out, but he said people should “expect them soon.” Rumors suggest OpenAI’s first product will be a mobile smart speaker without a display, and it has been described as a “humanlike AI companion” designed for home use. He further said OpenAI is working on a “family of devices” and is building its own chips. OpenAI wants to offer “value over time” and deliver on a device that’s “built for the AI era” and “maximally useful.”
He had ChatGPT answer a question about what OpenAI’s first AI device would look like.
My take, something ambient and low friction, voice first but not voice only and with a clear privacy signal.
ChatGPT also answered whether the company’s first device would need a screen, and it said “nope.”
People haven’t been thrilled with the recent merging of ChatGPT and Codex, and Brockman acknowledged that the app is “kind of a mess.” He described the current app as “incremental progress towards the future,” and said the separate Work tab should be gone by the end of the year, with everything molding into ChatGPT.
Brockman’s full interview, which goes into more detail on ChatGPT’s future, OpenAI’s hardware work, and the company’s ambitions, can be watched on YouTube.
