A little over three months since Sam Altman and ex-Apple designer Jony Ive teased their vague plan to launch a “family of devices” onstage at OpenAI’s developer conference at Moscone Center, another OpenAI executive graced another stage to announce another murky hardware-related update.
On Monday during an Axios-hosted panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane announced that the generative AI giant is “on track” to debut its first-ever hardware device in the second half of this year.
Previously, Altman has hinted that the device will be more “peaceful” than an iPhone and possibly even screenless. Lehane declined to reveal specifics, but new reporting from the Taiwanese newspaper United World News (and preceded by a leak from a tech blogger known as Smart Pikachu) suggested it may be an audio headset. In other words, OpenAIBuds incoming. According to the outlet, OpenAI will allegedly ship 40 to 50 million units of the device — codenamed “Sweetpea” — by this fall, via Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn.
But frankly, who knows! The news comes amid a flurry of disparate product announcements out of OpenAI and other Altman ventures, every one seemingly an attempt to generate more serious revenue for the still-unprofitable company. In the past week alone, OpenAI said it would begin to roll out ads in ChatGPT’s free version and new age prediction software to support its “adult mode” erotica subscription product; it also said it would invest in a new brain-computer interface startup (where Altman is also a co-founder) and is soliciting funds from Middle East investors.
At this juncture, what exactly is OpenAI? Is it a chatbot developer? A biotech firm? A wearables retailer? Watching the AI industry leader scramble to find a clear path forward raises questions about the bubble Altman himself addressed back in August, which has hung precipitously overhead ever since.
We here at Gazetteer SF have reported a couple times now that the AI bubble is unlikely to burst in a way that actually slows investment into the AI sector or reverses any damage done to the tech workforce or the human psyche. Still, with the internal panic certainly still circulating after a “code red” memo to OpenAI employees over Google Gemini’s success, as well as swelling rumors about OpenAI’s imminent bankruptcy, OpenAI could be the first AI supernova burning out.
But probably not. Even if OpenAI were to go bankrupt, Altman and his cronies would surely spin themselves into some new company, backed by the same venture capitalists, and start all over again.
