OpenAI Says Its Physical Device Is ‘On Track’ for an Unveiling Later This Year

Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer at OpenAI, said Monday that his company is “on track” to bring its popular mystery product to the public by the end of the year, according to Axios. This means that the previously rumored release date of September wasn’t crazy at all.

Lahan’s announcement came during an event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But Lahane didn’t provide any details about what that thing was or did. He also said, according to Axios, that what he described as a release schedule was “probably” but that “we’ll see how things progress.”

For details on what the device is and what it does, you’ll have to read the above rumors from China-based leak account Smart Pikachu. This user posted a week ago that OpenAI is supposedly seeking to tap into the niche market currently occupied by AirPods.

Smart Pikachu described manufacturing giant Foxconn working on something codenamed “Sweetpea,” a “special audio product” under a company project called “Gumdrop,” vaguely in the area of ​​earbuds or “open headphones.” It will be two bodies — one for each ear — and a small, egg-shaped charging base about the size of a dental floss holder. Sweetpea will pack the heavy processing power via a 2nm smartphone-style chip. Its release may also be followed by, or accompanied by, four other “gumdrop” devices between now and 2028, such as a “home-style device,” and, um, penAccording to Smart Pikachu. And again: these are just unconfirmed rumors at this point.

But you’ll remember that the vast majority of the actual information OpenAI has given the world so far about its first device comes from two sources: 1) A very strange commercial for the friendship concept that OpenAI released in the spring of last year starring OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and legendary iPhone designer Jony Ive — whose product design company just merged with OpenAI.

and 2) a much longer – but somewhat less substantive – interview Ive and Altman conducted in November, where they explained almost nothing, other than the fact that they’re aiming for a product so exciting that you’ll want to put different parts of your mouth on it. “It’s very simple, but then it happens,” whatever that means, Altman said. He has said that he is interested in creating “sophisticated products that you want to touch and feel no intimidation and want to use almost carelessly and almost without thinking.”

So here you go. It already is, you won’t even think about it, you’ll want to accept it, and it may be available before the midterms. What more do you need to know?