While working at Apple as chief design officer, Ive met the founder’s wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, now the founder and president of investment company Emerson Collective.
The connection between the pair has remained strong, with Emerson Collective investing in Ive’s creative collective LoveFrom, (indeed Ive says it wouldn’t exist without the support of Powell Jobs) and creating a link to the OpenAI partnership as a result.
Powell Jobs said that so far, she has been a “trusted, beloved friend” in the development process of the io-OpenAI collaboration, adding that she is also an “admirer of new ideas.”
“And then something that you think: I can’t imagine that getting any better. Then seeing the next version, which is even better. Just watching something brand new be manifested, it’s a wondrous thing to behold.”
A key question when it comes to AI is also who will win, and what does winning look like?
Is it the company which dominates with a new product—as the io and OpenAI team are hoping—is it building the best large language model, is it building AI into existing products most effectively, or is it achieving human-level generative AI?
These are the questions facing all major tech companies, with Powell Jobs also having a notable interest in another key player: Apple.
On this account, she added: “I’m still very close to the leadership team in Apple. They’re really good people and I want them to succeed also.”
While speculation about what exactly Ive’s new device may be is rife, the motivation for its existence is clear.
Ive says a driver for the design is the fact that “humanity deserves better” than an “uneasy” relationship with technology.
Ive added the need to be useful to humanity was once the bedrock for innovation in Silicon Valley, adding: “When I first moved here [in 1992] I came because it was characterised by people who genuinely saw that their purpose was in service to humanity, to inspire people and help people create. I don’t feel that way about this place right now.”
Powell Jobs added that there are now “dark uses” for certain types of technology, citing surveys that found how negatively young people’s mental health has been impacted by tech, for example.
“Technology wasn’t designed to have that result, but that is the sideways result,” she added.
“I believe there are more reasons than not to be optimistic that we can manage the risks of AI while maximizing their benefits. But we need to move fast,” he added.
