AI Briefing: What would Steve Jobs say about Apple’s ambitions for AI?

Decades before the first iPhone, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs expressed his vision for personal computing that seems strikingly similar to current innovations in generative AI.

In a 1985 speech, Jobs imagined a world which now seems possible with modern large language models. Admitting the computer industry was “in the tank,” he said personal computing had “tremendous momentum” and thought they’d soon enable an era of “free intellectual energy.” Even before the 1990s tech boom and bust, he predicted computers would someday gather source material and help humans ask questions to the world’s brightest minds — both past and present. To illustrate his point, Jobs joked about becoming “immensely jealous” after learning Aristotle had once tutored Alexander the Great.

“My hope is someday when the next Aristotle is alive, we can capture the underlying worldview of that Aristotle in a computer,” Jobs said. “And someday some student will be able to not only read the words Aristotle wrote but ask Aristotle a question and get an answer. That’s what I hope that we can do. So this is a beginning I think.”

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