OpenAI president Greg Brockman has shared details about the company’s hardware plans. In an interview with Joanna Stern, Brockman said OpenAI is building a family of AI devices and is working on its own chips. Brockman also addressed the lawsuit filed by Apple against the company. He did not comment on the legal case in detail but denied any interest in using another company’s confidential information.
Brockman did not reveal when OpenAI’s first family of hardware devices would launch, but he said people should “expect them soon.” Reports suggest the first device may be a smart speaker without a display. It is expected to work as a human-like AI companion for use at home.
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He also said that OpenAI wants to offer “value over time” and offer a device that’s “built for the AI era” and “maximally useful.”
During the interview, Brockman asked ChatGPT what OpenAI’s first AI device might look like. The chatbot replied, “My take, something ambient and low friction, voice first but not voice only and with a clear privacy signal.” When asked if the first device would need a screen, ChatGPT answered, “nope.”
Brockman also responded to Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI. Apple has accused the company of trying to collect confidential information from Apple employees during job interviews. The iPhone maker also claimed OpenAI’s hardware work depends on information taken from Apple.
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He repeated OpenAI’s earlier position, saying, “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, “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.”
Furthermore, Brockman admitted that the current ChatGPT app has become complicated after the merger with Codex. He said the app is “kind of a mess” at the moment, describing it as “incremental progress towards the future.” He added that the separate Work tab is expected to disappear by the end of the year.