From rocket launches to the reveal of the gaudiest phones you’ve ever seen to the debut of a fingerprint-scanning smart refrigerator, Dreame Next was full of surprises – but the most exciting for me was definitely the appearance of Steve Wozniak. Turns out he’s one of the few people who loves the iPhone Air.
Starting with his thoughts on Apple’s latest phones, Wozniak mentioned that he also loved his iPhone 17 Pro Max — although he calls the orange-colored model the Trump phone, given that he shares the U.S. president’s skin tone — but for him, as he held up the iPhone Air he pulled out of his jacket pocket to the crowd, the improbably slim device won out.
Because “it evokes an emotion” with its unique aesthetic that seems imbued with human passion.
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For Wozniak, this human element is what matters most: “Human beings are more important than technology. »
And the only way for a company to focus on that human element above all else, in Wozniak’s mind, is for engineers – people who have the know-how and passion to create designs that people want to use and love – to lead the charge at the highest levels.
Although he didn’t directly mention Apple’s current situation beyond the approval of the iPhone Air, I couldn’t help but think that his constant references to the importance of engineers in leadership positions was an endorsement of Apple’s new CEO, John Ternus.
A defining figure in Apple’s hardware over the past two decades, even as head of its hardware engineering division, Ternus could bring the engineer’s ability to “lead design with his heart,” which Wozniak praised.
“He has no heart”
Predictably, the Apple co-founder was therefore not enthusiastic about AI, calling his relationship with the technology “complicated.”
“Every time computer technology advances, it allows the human user to do more than before,” he explained. “It can give me good ideas, but I don’t like the mistakes she makes because it’s too easy to believe the wrong things.”
The AI speaks with such confidence that its mistakes are sometimes easy to overlook, and it also lacks the human flair that only a truly emotional person can bring: “The AI can do valuable things, but it has no heart. »
Wozniak admitted that AGI – an artificial general intelligence as intelligent as a human – could theoretically have this heart and emotion, but as he said: “I don’t believe we will achieve AGI. »
He explained that when he returned to college to finally get a degree after dropping out ten years earlier, we majored in psychology. He worked with people trying to model the human brain and saw how difficult it was for them to understand even small parts of it. “Engineers have found that the only way to build a human brain takes nine months” – a line the animators didn’t immediately register was a gag.
In case he was wrong about AGI and that technology was overthrowing us as the dominant force on the planet and taking us as pets, Wozniak also joked that he had started feeding his dogs steak fillets – “That’s how I would like to be treated,” he said.
The death of PCs? Unlikely
As for what’s next, if it’s not AGI, Steve Wozniak admitted it’s impossible to be sure, but he expects the next decade to be even more of the same – only better.
That means better phones, better computers, better technology, but not one product that cannibalizes another – pushing back against the Dreame Next host’s thoughts that smartphones will finally replace PCs, saying: “I don’t really believe that.”
“Look at the cars, once we hit a good plateau it can stay the same for a very long time,” he said. Wozniak added that phones and PCs have stagnated in their respective niches, and he doesn’t expect one to start cannibalizing the other, especially because phones are improving, as are PCs at an equal rate.
This does not mean, however, that we should be complacent. “You have to believe that you can improve the technology of the moment,” is how Apple got started and continues to grow. “Look at what you have today. How can you improve it? Improve it, improve it, keep moving towards a great future.”
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