The First Humane Devices

Technology for kids should support growth, not hijack attention. When product design aligns with developmental integrity, it amplifies identity rather than undermining it.

May 22, 2025

OpenAI and Jony Ive are designing a new kind of device.

No product showcase. No big reveal. Just a quiet signal: two of the most influential minds in design and AI are collaborating on something that might finally respect the user’s rhythm.

And in 2025, that stands out.

Because if you’ve been raising or teaching kids in recent years, you’ve seen the shift.
The faster the tech, the harder it is for a child to hold a moment still.

We didn’t mean to build childhood out of scrolls and alerts. But we did.
And now, systems train kids to move through experiences without naming them.

If these devices are built to resist that drift, they aren’t just innovative.
They’re essential.

What Today’s Devices Are Really Teaching

Most systems kids use run on preemptive logic.
Content appears before curiosity. Suggestions interrupt before the question form. Prompts collapse the space between thought and response.

It’s called personalization. But it often flattens experience into prediction.

And when everything responds before a child asks, they start to forget they were supposed to wonder first.

This isn’t about distraction. It’s about displacing the internal voice that makes meaning.

By contrast, OpenAI’s ChatGPT doesn’t interrupt. It doesn’t assume. It waits.

That wait is the difference. It gives children back the arc of authorship.

And when pacing is restored, reflection becomes possible—not as a luxury, but as a structure.

Children raised without space for reflection become fluent in reaction—but uncertain in memory.

Design That Respects the User

Jony Ive’s work didn’t just look good—it respected attention.

The iPod made choices feel deliberate. Early Macs offered room to think. Even iOS, in its early form, let the user lead.

His design wasn’t about silence. It was about restraint.

Now imagine a device shaped by that same posture—a tool that doesn’t rush to be useful, but waits to be invited.

A child finishes the day. Instead of feeding the next input, the device might ask:

“What surprised you today?”
“What didn’t make sense yet?”
“What do you want to hold onto?”

These aren’t journaling nudges. They’re tools to mark memory.

The question isn’t what a child did today. It’s what stayed with them—and why.

Most devices track completion. These would help children notice continuity.

Listening Is No Longer Neutral

If these devices succeed, it won’t be because they’re fast.
It’ll be because they slow down in the right places.

They won’t guess. They won’t prompt.
They’ll wait to be asked.

In a culture that harvests attention, a device that listens first is no longer neutral. It’s dissent.

And in that pause, children might finally find space to hear themselves.

This isn’t another digital assistant. It’s a shift in expectation.

Because children don’t just grow up using tools.
They grow through them.

And if every tool rewards speed and output, what gets lost isn’t time.
It’s narrative gravity.

Ready. Wait. Listen. Begin.

iPhones reshaped the world by launching an app economy.
These devices might launch a reflection economy built on memory instead of momentum.

We’ve spent twenty years accelerating action.
Maybe it’s time to build tools that help children pause and aim.

Ready, fire, aim? Not this time.
Ready. Wait. Listen. Begin.