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The AI-Phone's "Ive moment"
17th October 2023
Welcome to AI Collision,
In todayâs collision between AI and our world,
The best kind of customer is�
Hey Volko wants the building codes!
A distressed barn owl
If thatâs enough to get the thumbs texting, read onâŠ
AI Collision đ„
iPhoneâs creator eyes up AI
It was 1999. I was still at school. I remember the year well because my Australian Rules Football (AFL) team, the North Melbourne Kangaroos, were absolutely flying.
They would go on to win the Premiership, the AFL Grand Final, that year. I also remember it because I was in Sydney when they won it, around my birthday. I was away playing waterpolo at a national schoolboysâ competition.
I was happy it was my birthday, sad because I was in Sydney when in Melbourne my footy team were winning the flag, but happy because I was playing in a national waterpolo competition.
My folks must have known I was a bit cheesed-off about missing the âGrannyâ and the celebrations that come with it. So, in Sydney, as it was my birthday, they got me something great.
Better than great actually. It was amazing.
As I unwrapped the box, there it was, in blue on the top of the boxâŠ
My folks had only gone and got me a mobile phone for my birthday!
And not just any phone. A Nokia. More specifically, a Nokia 3210. 160 million units later, the Nokia 3210 was a game changer in mobile phones.
It was hugely popular with kids my age, and today it is still one of the highest selling mobile phones of all time.
Itâs easy to see why: being able to text your mates; playing âSnakeâ on the train to and from school; a battery that basically never died; and just to feel connected to the modern world.
The 3210 holds a special place in 160 million peopleâs hearts and will forever be a cultural phenomenon.
I loved that phone. Iâm sure itâs still in a storage box somewhere in a shipping container my dad has somewhere.
But those old Nokia phones were something else. They were progress, they were cutting-edge technology, they were beautiful industrial design.
They bridged the intangible world of mobile communications and technology to the most important consumers in the world⊠teenagers.
The 3210, of course, was not the first mobile phone. Nor was it the first Nokia (or the last). But it was arguably the most influential.
The same can be said of Appleâs iPhone.
We all know the iPhone. Heck, I even had an iPhone 3G when they first came out. And I donât know too many people that donât have one now or didnât at some point in the past.
The iPhone, like the 3210, was a cultural phenomenon.
It too was progress, technology and beautiful industrial design all in one package. It may have been a world away from the technology of the 3210, but it shared the same kind of impact on the world.
And the iPhone appealed to the most important customer of all⊠teenagers.
I tell the story of the 3210 and the iPhone for good reason. These werenât the first, pioneering tech breakthroughs theyâre held up to be. But theyâre remembered as such. And thatâs because we hold them on a pedestal because of their wide appeal. They were nice to look at, nice to use and they were a design breakthrough almost more than the technology they contained.
Thatâs important to know. Because right now, we may be on the precipice of another 3210 and iPhone moment.
Thereâs no doubt that artificial intelligence is branching out into all kinds of aspects in our lives. Through cloud services, into our homes with robotics like the Roomba, and we even casually call for âAlexaâ or âSiriâ when we need some help, like setting an oven timerâŠ
But AI, for all its potential, is still clunky.
Itâs not easy to use. Itâs not right there at your fingertips. It might feel that way to some technologists. But run the âgrandmaâ test over it, and youâll find that itâs really not that easy for Nan to tap into the full potential of AI in her life.
But what if there was something like that? Softbank (TSE:9434) seems to think itâs something worth throwing $1 billion at.
OpenAI (now partly owned by Microsoft), is the company that released ChatGPT into the wild and it is looking at developing an AI phone that does what only a handful of phones before it has done â make an impact on culture, not just technology.
An AI phone that puts real AI at the fingertips, easily, seamlessly, in a way that means everyone (including Nan) can use.
But itâll clearly be going for the most important customer of all first.
Thatâs why itâs rumoured the company is looking to do an âAI-phoneâ with the impeccable design credentials of Jony Ive, the designer of the iPhone and other game-changing Apple products, like the iMac G3, iPod and iPad.
Itâs quite the collision of industry. Industrial design with Ive, the AI powerhouse of OpenAI (with a flavour of Microsoft) and a kick-in of about $1 billion from Japanese conglomerate Softbank.
Something big is brewing, you can feel it, and it could certainly change the fortunes of one of those companies.
AI Gone Wild đ€Ș
Last week I wrote about the idea of Tom Hanks selling dental plans without actually selling dental plans.
Meaning, some shifty company used an AI version of Tom to sell a product.
The pain of litigation was probably worth the publicity. Albeit I hope not.
But as I thought more about this, it does make me worried about how AI is going to be used in dodgy ways.
For example, letâs assume weâre work mates, you and me. (Câmon thatâs not such a wild idea, is it?)
We work in the same building. Sometimes in the office, sometimes WFH (work from home). My nickname in the office is Volko.
And itâs late on a Friday, youâre working at home, and you get a voicemail from me. It goes (hit play below):
What do you do?
Youâve got the kids kicking down the office door, the dog is barking, youâre a little distracted.
Sounds like me, so you donât have any reason to assume itâs not me. So, you promptly send the pin code to the office.
You then come in on Monday and find out that the office has been looted.
Someone came in on Friday evening and took all the servers, computers, anything of value.
The interesting thing is that they used the pin code for the building to get access. The police suspect an inside job.
Youâre bricking it at this point. Maybe that voicemail was a little off. You ask me what I was doing in the office on Friday.
I tell you, I wasnât there. You say, but you called and left a voicemail. I tell you I didnât. Because⊠I didnât.
My voice was âspoofedâ by AI. You were duped, scammed, tricked by AI.
This is how it gets used. This is how scams evolve. There are and will be of course ways to detect this. Maybe even using AI to detect AI. But there is no doubt that AI scams will be knocking on your door (and mine) very soon.
Boomers & Busters đ°
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom đ
Brainchip Holdings (ASX:BRN) up 26%
Predictive Oncology (NASDAQ:POAI) up 13%
AeroVironment (NASDAQ:AVAV) up 6%
Bust đ
Wearable Devices (NASDAQ:WLDS) down 17%
UiPath (NYSE:PATH) down 8%
Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) down 5%
From the hive mind đ§
Artificial Polltelligence đłïž : The Results Show
I would normally publish the results from last weekâs poll hereâŠ
However.
I donât know why, but the poll last week didnât seem to publish properly. All I got, and I know many others did too, was this:
Sorry about that!
Therefore, Iâm running the poll again.
Note to Substack: you bloody better get it right this time!
Results on Thursday!
Weirdest AI image of the day
ChatGPT quote of the day
Thanks for reading, see you on Thursday (and donât forget to leave your comments below)