Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Steve Jobs passed away in 2011. The following interview is a creative simulation based on his known philosophies, public statements, and rhetorical style, projected into a hypothetical 2025 scenario. It is not a real transcript.
Date: October 14, 2025
Location: Apple Park, Cupertino (Hypothetical Simulation)
Subject: Steve Jobs
Interviewer: Sarah Chen, Wired Magazine
Sarah Chen: Steve, thank you for agreeing to this. We’re in 2025. AI is everywhere. It writes code, paints art, and drives cars. If you were sitting in this room today, looking at the state of artificial intelligence, what would you say?
Steve Jobs: [He leans forward, hands clasped loosely on the table. He looks calm, but his eyes are intense.]
I'd say... it's too loud.
Sarah Chen: Too loud?
Steve Jobs: Yes. Right now, everyone is shouting about AI. They're treating it like a religion. "Generative this," "Agentic that." They're trying to force technology to be the center of the story. But technology isn't the story. People are the story.
If you look at the history of Apple, we never made a computer to be a computer. We made it a bicycle for the mind. The best technology is invisible. It just works. Right now, in 2025, AI is the opposite. It's a black box. You put a prompt in, you get a hallucination out. And people are told to trust it. I don't trust it.
Sarah Chen: So you believe we're moving too fast?
Steve Jobs: It's not about speed. It's about focus. Look at the iPhone. It wasn't about cramming every feature in. It was about removing the friction until you couldn't imagine life without it. AI today is about adding friction. It's about asking users to verify, to fact-check, to manage subscriptions for different models. That's not magic. That's work.
If you can't explain how it works to a six-year-old, you don't understand it. And if you're selling it as magic, you're lying.
Sarah Chen: Privacy has become a huge debate. In 2025, most models are cloud-based. They learn from your data to improve. Where would Apple stand on that?
Steve Jobs: [He pauses, looking off to the side.]
Privacy isn't a feature. It's a fundamental human right. If you put your life in a cloud, you don't own your life anymore. You're renting it.
For AI to be truly useful, it has to live on the device. The silicon in your pocket is powerful enough now. Why do you need to send your personal diary to a server in Nevada to get a suggestion? You shouldn't. The intelligence should be local. It should know you, but it shouldn't sell what it knows.
If the business model of AI is to harvest your behavior to sell ads, then the AI is the product, and you are the battery. That's the wrong direction.
Sarah Chen: Critics say that AI will replace human creativity. That a machine can write a symphony or paint a portrait better than a human. What do you think?
Steve Jobs: Machines can copy. They can mimic. They can remix the past. But they cannot create.
Creation requires intent. It requires pain. It requires joy. It requires the human experience. A machine doesn't have a soul. It doesn't have a heart that breaks. So, if you use AI to paint, you're not painting. You're curating.
I worry that in 2025, people are using AI to do the thinking for them. That's dangerous. The tool should extend your capability, not replace your agency. If you use AI to write your emails, you lose your voice. If you use it to write your code, you lose your understanding.
We need to teach people to use the tool, not let the tool use them.
Sarah Chen: You mentioned the "bicycle for the mind." Do you see a future where AI becomes that bicycle?
Steve Jobs: It can be. But only if it's simple.
Imagine a future where you don't talk to a chatbot. You don't type prompts. The device just... knows. It anticipates. You're walking, and you need directions. The map opens before you ask. You're writing, and it fixes the grammar because it knows your style. It doesn't say "Here is a draft." It just happens.
That is the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. The art is the silence. The technology is the engine.
Right now, people are obsessed with the engine. They want to know how big the horse is. I don't care about the horse. I care about where we're going.
Sarah Chen: If you could give one piece of advice to the engineers building the next generation of AI, what would it be?
Steve Jobs: Simplicity.
Stop trying to be everything. Be something that matters. If your AI makes a mistake, own it. Don't hide behind "it's a probabilistic model." That's corporate speak for "I don't know."
And remember: The most powerful thing in the room is the person holding the device. Don't try to make the machine smarter than the human. Make the machine help the human be smarter than they were yesterday.
That's the only metric that matters.
Sarah Chen: One last question. What excites you about the future?
Steve Jobs: [He smiles, a faint, rare smile.]
The unknown.
We are building the future right now. And the future isn't a prediction. It's something you build. I'm excited about the people who are going to wake up tomorrow and realize that the technology isn't the limit. The limit is their imagination.
That's what I've always believed. And that's what I'll always believe.
Sarah Chen: Thank you, Steve.
Steve Jobs: Thank you. Now, let's go make something insanely great.
End of Simulation