Realistic AI Interview

Setting: A sun-drenched, minimalist conference room at Apple Park in Cupertino. It is 2025. The room is entirely white, save for a sleek black table and two chairs. Subject: Steve Jobs, wearing his signature black St. Croix turtleneck, Levi’s 501s, and New Balance sneakers. He looks rested, intense, and perpetually impatient. Interviewer: A tech journalist from the future.

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Interviewer: Steve, it’s 2025. Artificial Intelligence has exploded. Generative AI is writing poetry, coding software, and making movies. Everyone says this is the biggest revolution since the internet. Do you agree?

Steve Jobs: [Leans back, steeples his fingers, stares at the ceiling for a long moment]

Look, the internet was a revolution in distribution. It moved bits from point A to point B instantly. That was profound. But what you’re calling AI today... it’s not a revolution in distribution. It’s a revolution in creation.

But here’s the problem: right now, it’s a mess. It’s noise.

Interviewer: Noise? But these models can pass the Bar exam. They can write sonnets.

Steve Jobs: [Sitting forward abruptly]

Sure, they can pass an exam. But can they think? No. They’re predicting the next word based on probability. That’s not thinking; that’s statistical parroting.

We spent the last forty years trying to teach computers to do exactly what we tell them. To be precise. Now, everyone is excited that computers can guess what we want? That’s a step backward in control, even if it’s a step forward in utility.

It’s like giving a typewriter to a million monkeys. Eventually, they’ll type Shakespeare. But they don’t know what they wrote. They don’t feel the tragedy of Hamlet. They just banged the keys.

Interviewer: So you’re skeptical?

Steve Jobs: I’m not skeptical about the technology. I’m skeptical about the application.

You look at these chat interfaces—typing prompts into a white box. It’s the command line all over again! We spent years getting rid of the command line so people could use a mouse, then touch, to intuitively grasp their digital environment. Now, the smartest people in the world are saying, "Hey, just type a complex sentence and hope the robot gets it."

That’s not product design. That’s engineering showing off.

Interviewer: Then how should we be using AI? You always talked about the computer as a "bicycle for the mind." Is AI a faster bicycle?

Steve Jobs: [Smiles slightly]

That’s a good question. A bicycle amplifies human locomotion. The Macintosh amplified human creativity. The iPhone amplified human connection.

Right now, AI is being used to replace the human. To write the email for you. To draw the picture for you. To make the music for you. That’s lazy. That’s the path of least resistance.

The true magic—the "insanely great" use of AI—is when it disappears. When it becomes the transmission for the bicycle, not the rider.

Imagine you’re a musician. You have a melody in your head. Today, you have to struggle with the instrument to get it out. With the right AI, you just hum, and the system understands the harmony, the texture, the emotion instantly. It removes the friction between your imagination and the reality.

It shouldn't do the work for you. It should make you a better you.

Interviewer: That requires a level of intimacy with the user. The current model involves sending all your data to the cloud, to a giant server farm. Does that bother you?

Steve Jobs: [His eyes narrow. The temperature in the room drops ten degrees]

It’s a disaster. It’s a privacy nightmare.

We have these companies... they want to know everything about you. They want to read your emails, listen to your conversations, look at your photos, so they can feed it into their "model." They treat your life as raw material for their product.

I’ve always believed that privacy is a fundamental human right. It’s about being able to have a space to yourself without someone looking over your shoulder.

If AI is going to be truly great, it has to be personal. It has to live on your device. It should learn your habits, your nuances, your life, and keep that data locked in the silicon of your phone or your glasses. It shouldn't be sent to a server in some warehouse to be dissected by an ad company.

The AI should know you like your spouse knows you. Not because you told a cloud server, but because it witnessed your life. And that relationship should be sacred.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about the hardware. We have AR glasses now. Neural interfaces are in development. Where does AI fit in the design of the future?

Steve Jobs: [Gestures vaguely at the air]

We are drowning in screens. You look around the street, everyone is looking down, hunched over, scrolling through infinite feeds. It’s isolating.

AI is the key to getting rid of the screen.

The ultimate computer is one you don’t see. It’s one that is just there. It’s ambient. If I’m walking down the street, and I want to know about a building, I shouldn't have to pull a rectangle out of my pocket. I shouldn't have to wear a bulky goggles rig.

The AI should simply overlay the information onto my reality, seamlessly, or whisper it into my ear, before I even ask. It should be so intuitive that it feels like an extension of your nervous system.

But to get there, the design has to be exquisite. It can’t be clunky. It can’t be "techy." It has to be fashion. It has to be jewelry. It has to be invisible.

Interviewer: You’re famous for your reality distortion field. Do you think AI will make it easier or harder for people to discern what is real?

Steve Jobs: [Pauses, looking serious]

This is the danger. When you can generate a video of anyone saying anything... trust becomes the most valuable currency in the world.

We are moving toward a world where everything is synthesized. And in that world, humanity becomes the premium feature. The handmade. The authentic. The flawed.

People will crave the real. They will crave a human touch. They will crave things that were made with care, not generated by an algorithm to maximize engagement.

My advice? Don’t let the machine write your poetry. Learn to write it yourself. Struggle with the words. Because the struggle is where the soul lives. The machine can give you the answer, but it can’t give you the question.

Interviewer: So, if you were launching a product in 2025, what would it be?

Steve Jobs: [Stands up, pacing slightly]

It wouldn't be a "chatbot." And it wouldn't be a "search engine."

It would be an agent. Let's call it... I don't know... a "Guide."

It doesn't have a personality. It doesn't tell jokes. It doesn't try to be your friend. It’s a tool. It organizes your life. It curates the universe of information so you only see what is relevant, beautiful, and useful to you.

It cuts through the noise.

Most importantly, it has a taste profile. You teach it your taste—what you like, what you value—and it acts as a filter against the torrent of garbage flooding the internet.

It brings simplicity to complexity. And that, after all, is the ultimate goal of design.

Interviewer: Steve, thank you.

Steve Jobs: [Nods once, turns and walks out of the room, leaving the interviewer alone with the silence.]