OpenAI Acquires Jony Ive's Startup in $6.5 Billion Deal To Create AI Devices

Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive, said Wednesday his firm was paying $6.5 billion to buy io, a one-year-old start-up created by Jony Ive, a former top Apple executive who designed the iPhone. From a report: The deal, which effectively unites Silicon Valley royalty, is intended to usher in what the two men call 'a new family of products' for the age of artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., which is shorthand for a future technology that achieves human-level intelligence.

The deal, which is OpenAI's biggest acquisition, will bring in Mr. Ive and his team of roughly 55 engineers, designers and researchers. They will assume creative and design responsibilities across OpenAI and build hardware that helps people better interact with the technology. In a joint interview, Mr. Ive and Mr. Altman declined to say what such devices could look like and how they might work, but they said they hoped to share details next year. Mr. Ive, 58, framed the ambitions as galactic, with the aim of creating 'amazing products that elevate humanity.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.