Fictional interview (creative simulation). Steve Jobs died in 2011; the “Steve” below is an imagined version used for storytelling—not a real interview or quotation.
Interviewer: It’s 2025. Everyone’s calling AI “the next computing platform.” Do you buy that?
Fictional Steve Jobs: “Platform” is a word people use when they don’t yet know what the product is.
AI is not the product. AI is a capability—like multitouch, like the internet, like graphics. The product is what you do with it, and whether it feels inevitable when you use it.
What’s happening right now is a lot of demos. The winners are going to turn those demos into experiences so simple that people stop thinking about the AI entirely.
Interviewer: What do you think most AI companies are getting wrong?
Fictional Steve Jobs: They’re shipping impressive instead of useful. They’re in love with the model.
Most people don’t want a chatbot. They want to get something done: write a better email, plan a trip without ten browser tabs, understand their finances without a spreadsheet, learn something without wading through junk. The interface should be the work—not a separate conversation you have about the work.
Interviewer: Chat is everywhere. Is chat the “GUI” of AI?
Fictional Steve Jobs: Chat is a command line with manners.
It’s fine when you’re exploring. But for daily life, it’s too slow and too ambiguous. You don’t want to negotiate with your computer. You want clarity: what’s it going to do, what did it do, and how do you undo it?
The GUI of AI is going to be context: you’re looking at something, doing something, and the system offers the next best action—quietly, correctly, and with taste.
Interviewer: Taste?
Fictional Steve Jobs: Yes—taste. People act like that’s not technical. It’s the most technical thing in the world.
AI will give you a thousand options. Taste is choosing the one that’s right. Taste is knowing when to say nothing.
A lot of AI today is noisy. It fills space. The future is AI that respects your attention.
Interviewer: What’s your view on “AI agents” that can take actions on your behalf?
Fictional Steve Jobs: Agents are either the future or the fastest way to break trust.
If an agent can book your flights, move your money, or send messages as you, then it has to be designed like a power tool. Power tools have guards. They have clear triggers. They don’t “guess” when the blade should spin.
The biggest design problem in AI isn’t intelligence. It’s permissioning: what is allowed, when, and how you confirm it—without turning everything into a security dialog from hell.
Interviewer: Do you think AI will replace a lot of jobs?
Fictional Steve Jobs: It will replace tasks. And some jobs are mostly tasks.
But the bigger story is: AI lets small teams do things that used to take huge teams. That’s going to create new companies. That’s going to rearrange industries.
The danger is not that AI is too powerful. The danger is that society moves slowly and technology moves fast. We’re going to need new training, new expectations—maybe even new definitions of what “work” is for people.
Interviewer: Where does privacy land in an AI-first world?
Fictional Steve Jobs: If your AI needs to watch everything you do to be helpful, then you’re building the wrong product.
The best AI is personal, but not because it’s invasive—because it runs as close to you as possible. On-device when it can. Minimal data when it can’t. And when data leaves, it should be transparent and revocable.
People will accept a lot if they trust you. And they will punish you forever if you betray them.
Interviewer: There’s a lot of concern about misinformation and deepfakes. How does that change the internet?
Fictional Steve Jobs: The internet is going to need provenance—like nutrition labels for information.
We’ll end up with layers: content you can trace, content you can’t. And people will choose defaults. Platforms that don’t help users understand “what is this and where did it come from?” are going to become unusable.
And yes, it’s going to be messy. We built a world where copying is free. Now we’re learning the cost.
Interviewer: What’s the next “killer device” for AI—phone, glasses, something else?
Fictional Steve Jobs: The killer device is the one that disappears.
Phones are incredible, but they demand your eyes and your hands. The next step is less friction: hearing, seeing, and doing—without pulling you out of life.
But here’s the truth: hardware is only “next” if it’s better. If it’s heavier, uglier, more intrusive—people won’t wear it. The human factors matter more than the keynote.
Interviewer: What would you do if you were launching an AI product today?
Fictional Steve Jobs: I’d pick one narrow promise and make it unbelievably great.
Not “an AI for everything.” That’s nonsense. Everything is where products go to die.
I’d build an assistant that’s not trying to be your friend—it’s trying to be your tool. It knows what matters to you, it protects your time, it stays out of your way, and it’s accountable. If it’s wrong, it tells you. If it’s unsure, it asks.
Interviewer: Final question: What’s your big prediction for AI in the next few years?
Fictional Steve Jobs: The big shift is that AI will stop being a destination and start being a layer.
You won’t “open the AI app.” It’ll be inside writing, inside photos, inside coding, inside music, inside customer support, inside search—everywhere. And then people will stop calling it AI, the way they stopped calling it “the internet” on a phone. It’ll just be: the product got better.
And the companies that win won’t be the ones with the biggest models. They’ll be the ones with the most humanity in the design.
If you want, I can generate two versions of this: one that leans more “keynote Jobs” (short, punchy, provocative) and one more “long-form reflective,” or tailor it to a specific format (magazine Q&A, podcast transcript, late-night interview).
