The reverberations that ChatGPT sent through one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful technology empires say a lot about the nature of disruption in the tech industry. Google had seen off any number of would-be search engine rivals over the years, but here was something different and potentially much more threatening: an entirely new way to ask for information.
It is tempting to see this week’s attempt by OpenAI to plant its flag in the consumer hardware business as a similar challenge to another tech empire: Apple. As he announced the purchase of io, a tech hardware start-up co-founded by Jony Ive, along with an alliance with the former Apple design guru, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman explicitly forecast an end to the era of smartphone dominance. Today’s “legacy” consumer gadgets, he said, were not well suited to a future shaped by AI.