Author: openjargon

• Anthropic's chief of staff fears AI could soon end traditional employment.
• Avital Balwit wrote a personal essay highlighting AI's potential impact on the workforce.
• She believes the rise of AI technology will replace many human job functions.

A 25-year-old Anthropic employee says she's prepping for a post-work society that may arrive sooner than some people think.

Avital Balwit, who is chief of staff to the CEO at leading AI company Anthropic, outlined her thoughts on what AI might do to employment in a personal essay for Palladium magazine.

"I am 25. These next three years might be the last few years that I work," she wrote. "I stand at the edge of a technological development that seems likely, should it arrive, to end employment as I know it."

Balwit said she was being "confronted with something more capable and general" with "every iteration of" Anthropic's AI model.

She theorized that her job and many others are heading for obsolescence, and those who ignore the prospect are largely in denial.

"The general reaction to language models among knowledge workers is one of denial," Balwit wrote, adding that the shared goal of AI is to create a system that can do anything.

Palladium noted that the essay was written in Balwit's personal capacity and did not reflect Anthropic's views.

The rise of generative AI has long caused anxiety about the risk of mass job losses, especially in the knowledge economy. Leading figures in the industry, including Elon Musk and Microsoft's Mustafa Suleyman, have voiced similar concerns.

Freelancers have previously complained that the widespread adoption of generative AI tools like ChatGPT has stolen potential work.

Several content writers have said work opportunities dried up after the early AI boom.

Balwit wrote that freelance writing had always been an "oversubscribed skillset, and the introduction of language models has further intensified competition."

"The economically and politically relevant comparison on most tasks is not whether the language model is better than the best human, it is whether they are better than the human who would otherwise do that task," she wrote.

Balwit did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• A US Air Force B-1B Lancer joined South Korean forces for a live-fire training exercise.
• The training involved dropping 500-pound bombs at a range in Korea.
• It's the bomber's first live-fire exercise on the peninsula since 2017, when tensions between the US and North Korea were running high.

A US supersonic bomber joined South Korea's Air Force for a live-fire training exercise, conducting runs with 500-pound bombs.

It's the first time the B1-B Lancer, a conventional, long-range penetrating strike bomber with a substantial payload capacity, has dropped live munitions on the Korean peninsula since 2017, when the US regularly sent the aircraft into the area in response to North Korean provocations.

The US Air Force released information on the training on Wednesday, writing that a B-1B Lancer from the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam joined South Korean F-15Ks Slam Eagles "for live munitions and close air support training at the Pilsung Range, Republic of Korea."

The bomber, along with the South Korean military aircraft, "successfully released live GBU-38, 500-pound joint direct attack munitions, simultaneously striking multiple simulated targets."

A video shared online showed some of the bombing elements of the training exercise.

"Today's integration with the Republic of Korea demonstrated the ability of our B-1 fleet to conduct precision targeting and strike with live weapons in an unfamiliar location," said Lt. Col. Christian Hoover, 37th EBS commander.

"The partnership with ROK allows us to support National Security objectives through the speed, flexibility, and readiness of our strategic bombers," he said.

After the live-fire bombing exercise at Pilsung, the Lancer linked up with US Marine Corps F-35Bs, US Air Force F-16s and KC-135 Stratotankers, and South Korean aircraft "for air-to-air training over the western region of South Korea."

The follow-on exercises combined fourth- and fifth-generation jets with a bomber element. The 7th Air Force said that the event was a "powerful deterrent to potential aggressors."

North Korea, a constant challenge, has continued work on its illegal weapons programs and has been frequently carrying out missile launches since 2022. More recently, it has engaged in provocations against South Korea, including sending balloons filled with manure and trash into the neighboring country. South Korea vowed to bring retaliatory action.

The exercises are the first time the B1-B Lancer has dropped live munitions on the Korean peninsula since 2017. At that time, North Korean weapons testing and provocations prompted US and South Korean forces to regularly fly in the area, conducting training exercises to deter North Korea.

At that time, North Korea was ramping up its missile testing, pursuing a variety of weapons developments that caused alarm bells to sound across the region. A year earlier, North Korea twice tested a nuclear weapon, and then it did so again in 2017. That same year, the North Koreans test-fired their first intercontinental ballistic missile. The country tested another one a few months later.

In the wake of the earlier ICBM tests, which occurred over the summer, then-President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with "fire and fury." Amid these rising tensions, the B-1Bs were highly active on the peninsula.

In July 2017, just days after North Korea's first ICBM test, two B-1Bs, as well as US and South Korean fighter jets, "practiced attack capabilities by releasing inert weapons at the Pilsung Range," what was then called US Pacific Command said.

Then, a month later in August, the US military flew four F-35B fighter jets and two B-1B bombers alongside four South Korean F-15 jets over the Korean peninsula in a show of force response to the launch of a North Korean missile over Japan.

And in September, in response to another North Korean missile launch over Japan, two B-1B Lancer bombers joined other US, South Korean, and Japanese aircraft "in a sequenced bilateral show of force over the Korean peninsula," PACOM said.

In October, US Air Force B-1Bs carried out mock missile launches off both coasts of South Korea, and then a live-fire exercise was executed in December, when a Lancer took part in a massive air drill.

• US economic data points to a soft landing as the labor market and inflation gradually cool.
• A soft landing can be beneficial for workers and others.
• The US seems on track for lower price growth without a recession.

So you might have heard the US is not in a recession, but the good news about the economy doesn't stop there. A soft landing is on the horizon, too — or already here depending on who you ask — and recent data reinforces that.

Per a St. Louis Fed post in October, economic policy advisor Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria finds while there is not an exact way to define a soft landing, a good rough definition is "when we increase interest rates and we manage to decrease inflation, but without causing unemployment to go up drastically and GDP growth to go negative."

"The economic rebalancing that we thought was necessary a couple years ago largely looks like it's been achieved," Joseph Briggs, an economist at Goldman Sachs, told Business Insider. "Provided that we stay on this current course, I expect that we will be increasingly transitioning to a more normal economic environment where growth is at or a little bit above potential and sequential inflation is near 2% in the next few months or next few quarters."

Taming inflation while staying out of a recession could be great news. "For many Americans, the difference between a soft landing and a more turbulent slowdown is their job," Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said in a statement to Business Insider.

Briggs said achieving a soft landing would benefit everyone, avoiding "some of the economic hardships that often come if you were to see the economy enter a more significant slowdown."

A slowly cooling economy heading back to normal

The economy has been confusing because the labor market has stayed pretty hot and inflation has been stubborn despite the Fed trying to slow borrowing and spending down.

The Fed reacted to sky-high inflation a few years ago by quickly hiking interest rates and holding them at that elevated level. The next Federal Open Market Committee meeting is next week, and the CME FedWatch Tool shows as of Wednesday morning that traders think rates are overwhelmingly likely to stay at their current target.

Data does show the US labor market isn't too hot, meaning the Fed is unlikely to go back to raising rates and keeping the door open for cuts later this year. There were 175,000 jobs added in April. March's job growth was almost twice as large, with a gain of 315,000. Those figures could be revised in the upcoming report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

New job openings data out on Tuesday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed they continued their downward trend in April, suggesting that businesses are slowing their hiring plans. Plus, the number of job openings per unemployed person has been moving downward in 2024.

"The substantial decline in job openings in April, to the lowest level since February 2021, paints a clear picture of a job market that has essentially returned to its pre-pandemic balance and is on the cusp of a soft landing," Bunker said in written commentary.

"Over the past two years, the US labor market has cooled off in a relatively painless way: fewer people are switching jobs while layoffs remain low," Bunker told Business Insider. "The result is that unemployment has been below 4% for over two years. But if the reduction in inflation stalls, then any further cooling off would mean higher unemployment."

Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows the year-over-year increase in the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, one inflation measure, was 2.7% in April.

There has been a ton of moderation in this rate particularly when comparing recent changes to those seen in 2022, another sign pointing to a soft landing.

GDP growth also hasn't been negative; the last time the change in the US real GDP was negative was in the second quarter of 2022, a strong sign the US is avoiding a recession.

Another data point we can look at is the commonly followed ISM manufacturing index, which tracks activity in US factories. UBS noted in a new post that the index fell more than expected in May "with both the new orders and production components falling."

"This is in line with our expectation of a gradual slowdown in US economic growth, which should put the Fed in a position to start policy easing later this year amid falling inflation," the post said.

The soft landing might already be here

David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, believes the US has already achieved a soft landing.

"To me, a soft landing is when the unemployment rate has basically hit its full-employment level, and the inflation rate is gradually coming down to a rate that's acceptable," Kelly said. "With this Friday's jobs report, we expect a 30th consecutive month in which the unemployment rate is at or below 4%."

"It sounds to me that the plane basically landed two and a half years ago, and it's just been cooling down ever since," Kelly said, adding that "the economy continues to grow, but it's been in a soft landing for some time."

Jason Draho, head of Asset Allocation Americas of UBS Global Wealth Management, said in a new note that the "differences of opinion between investors on the outlook for the US economy are getting smaller" — but also noted some forecasters think a recession isn't out of the picture. Draho said the consensus is "Growth is slowing but not cracking, inflation is stubborn but the trend is still lower, and the bar for Fed rate cuts is low while hikes are effectively off the table."

"In other words, a fairly comfortable soft landing with occasional turbulence," Draho added.

It's still a tough economic environment for many people.

"I think it's a very good economy for the top 10% of households, not quite so good for everybody else," Kelly said.

• United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said ULCCs are "going out of business."
• Kirby criticized no-frills carriers like Spirit for prioritizing cheap costs over customer service.
• He poked fun at one ULCC for charging $99 for a carry-on and then giving the agent a commission.

Ultra-low-cost airlines are taking one out of left field.

In a candid interview with The Air Show podcast published on Monday, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said the carriers are "going out of business" due to bad business strategy and poor customer service.

"It's a fundamentally flawed business model," he said. "The customers hate it."

Kirby's comments point to no-frills carriers like Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines, which offer cheap tickets thanks to their unbundled fares and barebones planes. Usually, these lower fares are at the expense of passenger comfort.

In a bid to attract more customers, the ultra-low-cost carriers, or ULCCs, have improved their operations with more free and premium perks, like Spirit dropping change fees and Frontier adding an "UpFront Plus" seat that resembles European business class.

Kirby, however, argued this shift in focus from leisure to premium offerings suggests an "internal acknowledgment that the [ultra-low-cost] business model doesn't work."

But above all else, Kirby said one "fundamental issue" has cost ULCCs a lot of business: "They haven't treated customers right."

He gave an example of an unnamed competitor that he said "started charging $99 for your carry-on bag," noting a commission was then paid out for collecting the steep fee from the customer.

Kirby is likely referring to the viral interactions between Frontier customers and ticket agents that surfaced on TikTok last year. Customers were reportedly forced to pay $99 per piece of luggage that fit into the airline's bag checker, and Frontier later admitted it offered a bonus to those who caught oversize carry-ons.

"You can do it once, but you don't get to do it to them twice," Kirby said. "And those airlines grew big enough that they actually need repeat customers."

Kirby's stance is further expressed in his response to Frontier CEO Barry Biffle's reported comment that the "lowest cost always wins."

"He's dead wrong…Best service always wins," Kirby said.

Recent airline rankings by customer satisfaction scores back up Kirby's claims.

Regarding the economy experience, Frontier and Spirit ranked last and second to last, respectively, in JD Power's 2024 survey that examined 11 North American airlines.

According to the Department of Transportation, the pair also had the highest rate of customer complaints among US airlines in 2023.

Still, Kirby did give credit where it's due, saying the well-built "mousetrap" low-cost carriers use to lure in infrequent flyers who care about price over loyalty have forced United to adapt and create its own version of a cheap ticket.

"They want the lowest price, and they're willing to have a disaggregated price," he said. "So, we needed to build a basic economy cup."

United's stripped-down coach fare mirrors the basic ticket most US ULCCs offer, including no free carry-on, changes, or cancellations allowed, but still has the regular mainline coach perks.

To their credit, Spirit has recently dropped all change and cancellation fees, and Frontier has dropped the fees for all non-basic economy fares.

Spirit and Frontier did not respond to requests for comment.

• Walmart just announced a new slate of pay and benefits perks for US hourly associates.
• Some 700,000 workers are eligible for a new bonus that increases with their years with the company.
• The retailer is also expanding online training options, as well as piloting a trades career pathway.

Walmart wants more workers to stick with the company for longer.

The retailer just announced a new slate of pay and benefits perks for US hourly associates, including a new bonus that increases with their years with the company.

Around 700,000 part- and full-time workers are now eligible for annual bonuses that are tied to their store's performance, the Associated Press reported.

Walmart told AP that full-time workers who have been with the company between one and five years would be eligible for a maximum of $350, while a 20-year employee would be eligible for a maximum of $1,000.

The moves follow a 30% increase in average wages over the past five years to nearly $18 per hour, the company said.

More than two-thirds of hourly Walmart workers are full-time, meaning they work an average of at least 34 hours a week, and employees who work at least 30 hours a week are eligible to receive health benefits.

Walmart is also expanding online training options through its Live Better U certificate program, which now has 50 skills that associates can complete in four months.

The company also said it is piloting a trades career pathway with 100 hourly associates in the Dallas area, training workers in higher-paying technician jobs in areas like facilities maintenance, refrigeration, HVAC, and automation.

"These jobs make between $19 and $45 an hour and offer opportunities to build a meaningful career while meeting a business need for the company," Walmart US CEO John Furner said.

A spokesperson told the AP the trades program is similar to a truck driver training program announced two years ago, which has since produced more than 500 new drivers.

If you are a Walmart employee who would like to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

• Boeing launched its Starliner spacecraft carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station. 
• The launch went smoothly after the program was plagued by delays.
• Boeing's spacecraft would give NASA a second option for human transport to space. 

On Wednesday morning, Boeing's Starliner launched toward the International Space Station carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

It was the first crewed mission for the commercial spacecraft, which has been plagued by delays due to technical concerns.

On May 6, a pressure relief valve in the Atlas 5 rocket led to the first scrub. Then on June 1, there was an issue with the three ground computers that orchestrate the final countdown, which led to another delay.

But Wednesday's launch went smoothly, with the astronauts lifting off at 10:52 am ET. The crew later reached orbit safely.

The successful launch will shake up the commercial spaceflight market.

Right now, SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft is NASA's main option for shuttling astronauts to and from space. The successful launch now gives NASA a second option, removing SpaceX's US-based monopoly on human-to-space transport.

Compared to SpaceX, Boeing has been slower to break into the commercial human-space transport business. In 2014, NASA selected both Boeing and SpaceX to build spacecraft to transport its astronauts to and from the ISS.

SpaceX began launching astronauts in 2020, but Boeing's effort was hit with costly delays. Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Boeing's issues were due to "too many non-technical managers."

Wednesday's launch isn't Wilmore's and Williams' first time in space. Both are seasoned astronauts and have each spent more than 150 days in space.

But this mission has been a long time coming for Wilmore and Williams. They've trained longer for this mission than Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins had for Apollo 11, The New York Times pointed out.

• Elon Musk's X has revamped its sensitive media policy to more explicitly allow adult content.
• The policy makes a robust ideological statement about not-safe-for-work content, welcomed by some.
• But Musk has a long way to go to make X a safe place to serve up porn, experts said.

Elon Musk's X overhauled its sensitive media policy this week, signaling an increasing coziness with the world of adult content.

While the platform has never formally forbidden porn, the new update is much clearer. It also includes a forthright ideological statement on the issue of smut.

"Sexual expression, whether visual or written, can be a legitimate form of artistic expression," the policy states.

It adds: "We believe in the autonomy of adults to engage with and create content that reflects their own beliefs, desires, and experiences, including those related to sexuality."

Prior to the update — first spotted by TechCrunch — X's "sensitive media" policy comprised a hodgepodge of rules around the posting of violent, sexual, or otherwise graphic material.

Now the site has separated its policy pages for "Adult" and "Violent" content.

This is clearly on brand for Musk.

Brooke Erin Duffy, associate professor of communication at Cornell University, told the Associated Press that the move "dovetails well with the company's post-Musk marketing strategy."

"X is unapologetically provocative and has sought to distinguish itself from 'brand safe' competitors," she added.

(Compare X's approach to Facebook's nudity policy, which only really acknowledges "awareness campaigns or artistic projects" as possible motivations for posting NSFW material.)

Harper Thornhill, a dominatrix and former representative of the UK's Sex Workers' Union, said the change isn't much more than a "PR stunt."

But the statement is a "great thing" in a world where sex workers are routinely stigmatized, she told BI. "It's a good thing that they are publicly taking pornography, commenting on it, and saying that we'll happily have it here — because that's life."

(Thornhill, whose working name is Countess Diamond, uses a pseudonym for professional purposes. Her real name is known to BI.)

But taking pornography on board so squarely ramps up concerns for X users.

Under the policy, someone posting adult material must label it as such, either on a post-by-post basis or across their whole account. This produces an age-restrictive content warning.

Meanwhile, a whole raft of awful stuff remains banned. The promotion or solicitation of sexual services is also banned under the policy.

But these measures are unlikely to satisfy regulators, Clare Daly, a solicitor working on child safety and data protection, told BI.

Multiple countries — including Ireland, where Daly practices — are weighing up sweeping measures that won't be satisfied with "age assurance measures based solely on self-declaration," she said.

"It appears that X will need to take much more proactive steps" to verify the age of its users, she said.

It's also unclear how X vets material that is posted nonconsensually, Thornhill, who has advised UK lawmakers on porn regulation, said.

The platform would have to adopt the same level of documentation as sites like Pornhub or OnlyFans use to operate safely, she added, saying that making this move without robust safeguards is a "recipe for disaster."

"There's so much harm that could come from this that is unseen and that hasn't been evaluated or assessed," she said.

There's also the question of what signal it sends to users who — even with an opt-out — just don't see X as a source for adult content, and prefer it that way.

"This move might attract a niche user base and boost engagement," Nick Hajli, a professor of digital strategy at the UK's Loughborough University Business School, told BI. "However, it risks losing advertisers and mainstream users concerned about brand safety."

X did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment,
but Musk might be having this exact business calculation.

In October 2022, as Musk stood ready to take over Twitter, leaked internal research showed that the platform was hemorrhaging its most active users while seeing a growth in their interest in adult content, as Reuters reported.

Earlier this year, TechCrunch also reported that Musk was toying with the idea of revitalizing X's "communities" feature, with NSFW adult content.

But do those in the field even trust Musk to get it right?

"Oh God, no," Thornhill said. "He's just too reactionary. Too egotistical."

• Kevin Coughlin, the GOP nominee for a House seat in Ohio, once called himself a "homophobe."
• It was part of a broader controversy over alleged discrimination when he was student body president.
• Coughlin claimed he was merely mocking discrimination claims from the "outer fringes of society."

Kevin Coughlin, the Republican nominee to take on Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes in November, is one of his party's best hopes of flipping a House seat this year.

Coughlin has a long history of serving in elected office, including 10 years in the Ohio Senate, four years in the Ohio House, and even a two-year stint as student body president at Bowling Green State University.

It was during his college years that Coughlin — amid a controversy involving alleged discrimination against a fellow student who was seeking an appointment to the student senate — declared that he disagreed with "the lifestyles that homosexuals choose to lead."

He also labeled himself — at least ironically — as a homophobe.

"I'm homophobic, I admit it, I have a problem with it," the student newspaper quoted Coughlin as saying in 1991, citing two people who had heard him make the remarks. Coughlin later penned a guest column in the paper disputing the exact quote while claiming that he had made the comment in jest.

"I jokingly said this because I am sick and tired of hearing cries of discrimination from members of the outer fringes of society every time they are turned down for a position or they run into someone who has differing opinions," Coughlin wrote at the time.

"It is true that I do not agree with the lifestyles that homosexuals choose to lead. I do not shirk from that," Coughlin continued. "But that does not make me stupid, uneducated or homophobic and I'm rather tired of people being persecuted because they hold an opinion."

A spokesperson for Coughlin's campaign told Business Insider that his comments were indeed sarcastic, and that the purported quote "does not reflect his views then, or now."

'As much sarcasm as I could muster'

According to archives of The BG News, the university's student-run newspaper, the controversy began in January 1991, when a vacancy opened in the university's undergraduate student senate.

Coughlin, first elected student body president in 1989, had the power to appoint a new senator. But after the president of the school's Lesbian and Gay Alliance expressed interest in the seat, Coughlin chose someone else.

That led another student senator to accuse Coughlin of discriminating against the student on the basis of his sexuality, at which point the student paper quoted Coughlin in February as saying he was "homophobic."

In the guest column he wrote two weeks later, Coughlin sought to straighten things out, saying he had appoint another student because of his previous service in student government.

He also took on the "homophobic" quote directly.

"Knowing that charges from the outer fringes of discrimination were on the way, I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster, 'Well you know why I didn't appoint him, don't you? It's because I'm a homophobe and I need help,'" Coughlin wrote.

"My opinion does not, however, mean that I would ever discriminate against a homosexual," he later added. "To me, people are people and as an American, people are entitled to their having opinions without having them twisted into something they're not."

The future state lawmaker would go on to lose reelection as student body president that spring, owing in part to the controversy.

Though it's been over 30 years since those events took place, Coughlin has maintained a general opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, including voting for a bill to ban gay marriage in 2004, when he served in the state senate.

Additionally, on a conservative Christian organization's questionnaire completed earlier this year, Coughlin indicated that he "strongly agreed" with the notion that "no government has the authority to alter" the definition of marriage as a "God-ordained, sacred and legal union of one man and one woman."

His campaign spokesperson, Cierra Shehorn, argued that the survey referred specifically to religious institutions' definition of marriage, that Coughlin believes the issue is "settle law," and that he would "never support an effort to change that."

• For years, an Apple-Google deal has dominated America's internet.
• Apple is about to announce a new arrangement that could do the same for the AI era.
• Tim Cook is expected to announce a partnership with OpenAI at WWDC to bring ChatGPT to iPhones.

When Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone in 2007, it was a landmark moment in Apple's history that involved the CEO of another Silicon Valley company: Google.

Eric Schmidt, Google's then-leader, joined Jobs onstage as a symbol of the growing bond between their companies. Two years earlier, in 2005, Apple and Google struck a deal to make Mountain View's search engine the default on the Mac's Safari browser.

With the iPhone, Google was about to be placed front and center as the core search tool on the pocketable device Apple was betting its future on. It's a tie-up that has, arguably, determined who dominates America's internet ever since.

As iPhones have grown in popularity across the US — Apple smartphones have had a market share of more than 50% since 2022 — Google's reach has spread too, giving an already dominant search engine more exposure.

Though the deal is now at the heart of a US government lawsuit filed against Google in 2020, it's proven to be a powerful means of shaping the internet experience of Americans, and highly lucrative for Apple: Google paid $20 billion to maintain the deal in 2022.

Now, Apple is preparing to unveil its plans to dominate the internet again — with the help of another Silicon Valley company.

Apple's plan to dominate the internet, again

On Monday, when CEO Tim Cook kicks off Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), he's expected to reveal a new vision of artificial intelligence by announcing a partnership with OpenAI.

According to a report on Wednesday from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is all but set to announce that the ChatGPT maker's technology will be integrated into the iPhone operating system.

For Apple, the partnership would present a bold attempt to bring generative AI features to its devices after months of questions from investors, developers and others about its plans to get in on Silicon Valley's most talked-about technology.

Though Apple typically keeps its plans top secret, there had been a growing sense the company was falling behind on AI. Rivals like Google and Meta were charging ahead with their own AI models, while Microsoft partnered with OpenAI as early as January 2023.

But by bringing an incumbent AI player like the ChatGPT maker into its mix, Apple will hope that it can shape a new internet experience for iPhone users in the AI era.

In a research note, Wedbush analysts including Dan Ives wrote that the WWDC could be "the most important event for Apple in over a decade as the pressure to bring a generative AI stack of technology for developers and consumers" grows.

For OpenAI, the deal would give it a ticket to one of the most powerful distribution systems in the world: more than a billion active iPhones.

Time will tell if the deal is as powerful as Apple's search engine agreement with Google. While OpenAI has emerged as the face of the generative AI boom thanks to the early-mover advantage gained from ChatGPT's release, it's also been mired in controversy.

No done deal

Its AI has been criticized for making critical errors and being prone to hallucinations, bringing its reliability into question. The company itself has also been the subject of controversy as its CEO, Sam Altman, has come under fire from current and former employees over safety pledges.

It's worth noting that neither company has yet officially confirmed the deal. Apple had previously been reported to have been in discussions with Google over an AI partnership, but OpenAI appears to have earned its favor.

One thing is certain: Apple's about to pitch the world on its plans to dominate the internet in the AI age.