The Internet has made the iPhone possible, will the AI era end the "touch screen"?

From the groundbreaking first-generation iPhone to the now aesthetically fatigued and unremarkable new device launches, smartphones have gone through a long 16-year history. However, the arrival of AI is likely to disrupt everything we are familiar with - from the appearance of computing terminals to the way we interact.

A Complete Change in Interaction

Regardless of the form of the new hardware, assuming its main function is to adapt to AI assistants, the primary mode of interaction for this new hardware is likely to no longer be touch screen.

Take the recent ChatGPT voice assistant as an example. The interactive experience is much better than traditional voice assistants like Siri and Alexa. Some columnists have described the experience of interacting with ChatGPT as "whispering of intellectuals from Stanford University in your ear." ChatGPT not only recommends books on the discussed topics but also provides concise summaries of the content of each book.

All of this is refreshing. Some analysis points out that "as the competition of large models enters a new stage, these multimodal AI systems that can listen and draw will bring about a revolution in new consumer technology." Technology writer Ben Thompson wrote:

"Just as the Internet created conditions for the breakthrough of smartphones, a breakthrough in hardware is waiting to happen."

New Hardware: Smart Glasses?

At the end of September, media reports stated that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, together with former Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive, known as the "father of the iPhone," and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, were in deep negotiations to establish a joint venture company to create an "AI-era iPhone."

The specific device is still unclear, but analysts speculate that considering Ive's involvement, OpenAI may be developing some kind of consumer electronic product.

One of the hottest speculations is glasses.

Just as OpenAI announced its hardware development, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also unveiled a series of new head-mounted display devices. In addition to bulky VR headsets, Zuckerberg announced a collaboration with sunglasses manufacturer Ray-Ban to launch smart glasses with integrated AI assistant capabilities that can answer wearers' questions, just like ChatGPT.

The technological readiness is approaching maturity. At the end of September, ChatGPT began to support multimodal capabilities, allowing not only text conversations but also image recognition and voice recognition.

Of course, inherent technologies are always difficult to replace. Meta's application family, such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, have billions of users and far surpass websites like ChatGPT in terms of monthly visits. Moreover, they rely on smartphones.

Mark Shmulik of investment firm Bernstein pointed out that even if the era of smartphones arrives, people will still use computers. Therefore, it is unlikely that smartphones will be eliminated in the short term.But the advance layout of many companies, from Apple to Meta, has already made some people realize that AI is quietly changing our future.