Brian Barrett:Vision Pro.
Zoë Schiffer:Vision Pro. Thank you very much.
Brian Barrett: You don’t think about Vision Pro every day?
Zoë Schiffer: NO. I must say it lived and died very quickly and I haven’t thought about it since. But I think this is a problem and it affects other AI hardware, devices like the renowned pin from Humane AI and so on. There are a lot of things that are better done on screen, and I don’t think that’s going to change. However, if you can get agents and a voice mode that works really well, there are other things you can simply ask the agent to do and you’d rather not have to look at the screen all the time. So personally, as someone who has a very tortured relationship with my screens, I’m ready for something that could work a little better. However, this is hard to do correctly and I don’t think we’ve seen a product yet that can do this. To make this point more broadly, according to the lawsuit, OpenAI hired over 400 former Apple employees.
Leah Feiger: Wow.
Zoë Schiffer: And last year, the company paid $6.5 billion to acquire a startup called IO Products, which was co-founded by longtime Apple executives including Tan, Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey and, most famously, Jony Ive.
Brian Barrett: Yes, it’s a huge investment they’re making in this space and Apple clearly feels the pain of losing all these people. Plus, they lost AI researchers to other companies. Apple’s bleeding talent in AI and now hardware talent as well, which really hits you where it hurts. What I’m most excited about in this whole process is that we haven’t actually reached that goal yet, and lawsuits mean discovery and…
Zoë Schiffer: Yes.
Brian Barrett: Yes, discovery, yes. And the discovery means that we will read a lot of emails from these companies where they talk nonsense about each other and themselves. And it will be such a pleasure. There’s always joy when things like this happen.
Zoë Schiffer: That’s very comical. Nobody is wittier than an intellectual property lawyer.
Brian Barrett:Put it on the cup, Zoë.
Zoë Schiffer: Are.
Brian Barrett: Wow. Do we have the goods yet? Can this be enabled…
Zoë Schiffer: Love it.
Brian Barrett: This is our stuff. Yes.
Zoë Schiffer: This is our stuff.
Brian Barrett: OpenAI’s problems aren’t just restricted to Apple’s lawsuit this week. WIRED has learned that OpenAI employees are funding a rival super PAC to advocate for tighter regulations on Frontier AI Labs. This is, of course, a rival to all the money that people like Greg Brockman, director of OpenAI, and others have devoted to strengthening artificial intelligence and closing down guardrails. This modern Super PAC called Guardrails Alliance is catchy. It was launched last month.