OpenAI President Greg Brockman recently gave an interview to Joanna Stern, in which 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 “very innovative” and is not interested in other companies’ trade secrets.
I would say we are not interested in other companies’ trade secrets. We are very innovative. We think about things from our own perspective. And that’s how we operate and that’s what we do.
He also said OpenAI was working on its own long-term product plans.
This is active litigation, so it’s not something I want to talk about, but all I can say is that we are very committed to a long-term roadmap and focused on our own development and our own technology. This is what interests us.
Apple accused OpenAI of a months-long scheme to steal confidential Apple information from Apple employees interviewing OpenAI. Apple said OpenAI had created a culture of hardware theft and that its hardware business was “rotten to the core” because the hardware it builds relies on information stolen from Apple. OpenAI products are developed with former Apple designer Jony Ive, although Ive was not named in the lawsuit.
Brockman declined to say when OpenAI’s first hardware devices would be released, but he said people should “expect them soon.” Rumors suggest that OpenAI’s first product will be a screen-less smart mobile speaker, and it has been described as a “human-like AI companion” designed for home use. He further said that OpenAI was working on a “family of devices” and building its own chips. OpenAI wants to deliver “value over time” and offer a device “designed for the AI era” and “extremely useful.”
He asked ChatGPT to 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 signal of privacy.
ChatGPT also answered whether the company’s first device would need a screen, and he answered “no.”
People haven’t been thrilled with the recent merger of ChatGPT and Codex, and Brockman acknowledged that the app was “kind of a mess.” He described the current app as “an incremental step forward into the future” and said the separate Work tab should disappear by the end of the year, and everything will be integrated into ChatGPT.
Brockman’s full interview, which goes into more detail about the future of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s hardware work, and the company’s ambitions, can be viewed on YouTube.
