No one can argue with the fact that artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm. Since the day internet users started using ChatGPT, AI has been on everyone's lips.
What has been lacking, however, is the user experience to convert non-believers into believers. Let me explain.
Every technology is nothing until such time that people begin a process of not just using but relying on it for almost everything they do. The netizens are well aware of that itching feeling of checking a status, an email and whatever else online. All digital products that have reached such status have converted you from being a non-believer to a believer or, in simple tech terms, a user.
Artificial Intelligence has so far failed to convert most into believers. No one is yet using ChatGPT in the same way that we search for stuff on Google search. It was one thing to get users excited, it’s something else to keep them engaged and using the product. It seems to me AI leaders are concerned about lack of user conversion into believers. The next big thing is to create an iPhone moment for the AI world.
According to media reports, this could be the reason why the man behind ChatGPT may be in discussions with the former chief designer of products such as iPod, iPhone and Apple watch. I am reliably informed that Sam Altman and Jony Ive may be discussing what is now referred to as an AI smartphone. If these reports are true, we are likely to see the next big thing after smartphones. Ive is not the only Apple alumni who may be in a position to shape the future of hardware in the AI driven world.
Other members of the Apple mafia are working on their own version of AI hardware. Imran Chaudhri is a designer, inventor and innovator. He spent more than 20 years at Apple, imagining and creating some of the world’s most beloved consumer products, like the Macintosh, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch and iPhone.
Imran is best known for his work on inventing the groundbreaking user interface and interactions on the iPhone, and is named as an inventor on thousands of patents. His work defines how the world interacts with technology, and is driven by his insistence on putting the human experience front and centre in the design process.
His partner, Bethany Bongiorno, led the teams behind some of Apple's most transformational products. As a director of software engineering, she was responsible for all software project management for iOS and macOS and also played a key leadership role in the execution of critical projects such as the launch of the original iPad. Prior to her time at Apple, Bethany studied physics, worked in astrophysics research, and was a data management and software development consultant. Bethany is passionate about building and leading high performing teams to solve complex problems.
Together, Imran and Bethany envision a future that is even more intelligent and even more personal, and have committed an organisation they’ve created, known as Humane, to building not for the world as it exists today but as it could be tomorrow. They seek to reshape the role of technology in our lives. Their first product has been spotted on fashion runways worn by some of the leading figures in fashion.
They have created an Ai Pin, which is a clothing-based wearable that uses a number of sensors while it harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to enable innovative 'personal computing experiences. The connected and intelligent clothing-based wearable device uses a range of sensors that enable contextual and ambient compute interactions. A selection of these interactions were recently previewed for the first time publicly in Imran Chaudhri’s TED Talk, where he got a call and he just used his hand as an interface.
He went on to describe the Ai Pin as something that will take screens away and allow us to be hands free. Imran described it as the product that will become your companion by listening, sensing, and observing and responding whenever required. If he succeeds in taking the product further, we are likely to see a future of technology that will be without screens and invisible.
Wesley Diphoko is the Editor-In-Chief of FastCompany (SA) magazine.
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