Interviewer: Steve, it’s 2025. AI is everywhere—phones, cars, even creative work. If you were leading Apple today, how would you think about AI?

Steve Jobs: Most companies are thinking about AI the wrong way. They’re obsessed with showing off the technology. But people don’t care about the technology. They care about what it does for them. The real question isn’t “How powerful is the AI?” It’s “Does it make your life simpler?” At Apple we always tried to take incredibly complex technology and hide it behind something intuitive. AI should disappear into the product.

Interviewer: So you don’t see AI as a product by itself?

Steve Jobs: Exactly. AI shouldn’t feel like a tool you go use. It should feel like the device just understands you. When you open your laptop or pick up your phone, it should already know what you’re trying to do. It should anticipate, but respectfully. Technology works best when it gets out of the way.

Interviewer: Some people worry AI will replace human creativity. What’s your take?

Steve Jobs: I’ve always believed technology is a bicycle for the mind. It amplifies human ability. AI should help people create things they couldn’t create before—music, films, software, art. But the soul still has to come from a human being. Tools don’t make great art. People do.

Interviewer: What about AI assistants that do work for you—writing emails, coding, planning?

Steve Jobs: That’s interesting, but there’s a danger there. If technology starts doing too much thinking for us, we lose something. The goal shouldn’t be to replace thinking. It should be to remove the boring parts so people can focus on the meaningful parts.

Interviewer: Where do you think the AI revolution is heading in the next decade?

Steve Jobs: The biggest shift will be that computers will start to understand context. Today we still treat computers like dumb machines—you have to tell them exactly what to do. In the future they’ll understand intention. When that happens, the interface as we know it—menus, buttons, apps—will start to fade away.

Interviewer: So the “app” model might disappear?

Steve Jobs: I think it will evolve. Apps made sense when computers didn’t understand you. But if a device really understands what you want, you shouldn’t have to hunt through twenty apps to do it.

Interviewer: Any advice for the companies building AI today?

Steve Jobs: Focus on taste. Technology alone isn’t enough. It never was. You need technology married with the humanities, with creativity, with empathy for the user. The companies that figure that out will build the future. The ones that just chase bigger models… they’ll make impressive demos, but not great products.

Interviewer: Last question—are you optimistic about AI?

Steve Jobs: Very. Every once in a while a tool comes along that expands what humanity can do. The personal computer was one. The internet was another. AI could be the next one. But only if we remember that the point of technology is to serve people—not the other way around.