OpenAI launched its first piece of hardware last week — a nifty little keyboard designed to pair with ChatGPT. Developed in collaboration with custom keyboard designer Work Louder, the Micro is essentially a craft workplace innovation that many techies will love and may leave anyone a little confused.
OpenAI’s entry into the hardware market did not come without drama. A few weeks ago, Apple sued the artificial intelligence laboratory and accused him of trade theft – which would begin a long legal battle. Meanwhile, news another smart home product The development at OpenAI has also raised eyebrows, as the supposed device built to pair with ChatGPT was reportedly developed by ex-Apple engineers.
Until the legal battle plays itself out and OpenAI’s broader hardware ambitions come to fruition, the most the startup has to offer is the Micro — a funky little keyboard designed expressly to please the code monkeys of the tech industry.
OpenAI sent a Micro test unit to TechCrunch. The first big thing you notice when working with the keyboard is that it’s a solid little device – enough that it could easily double as a paperweight if the AI accessory isn’t working. Another thing you might notice (and I’m not Just one person to point this out)the packaging—an immaculate white box with a sleek, clean aesthetic—is pretty coded Apple. Make of it what you will.
The keyboard layout includes six slatted “agent” keys at the top of the pad that can be customized to perform specific tasks within ChatGPT or its agent coding tool, Codex. Below them are six command buttons that can be used to control those programs. You can connect your microcomputer to your computer via Bluetooth connection or USB cable.
Perhaps the most convenient thing Micro offers is the button for voice dictation – which means you just tell the program what you want it to do and it does the work for you. Just press and hold the dictation button and start speaking. When you’re done, click the “submit” button next to your request to send it.
You can customize your Micro keyboard in ChatGPT itself, where the Micro tab lets you adjust everything from the brightness of the keys to the specific commands and projects you want to bind to those keys.
Hard-core coders—the device’s true target audience—haven’t quite embraced it. Reviews by Redditors are mostly negative, one Reddit user said.a joke and not a real product,” and others say serious coders won’t touch it. even tougherThe $230 price tag is hard to justify next to cheaper DIY and off-the-shelf alternatives. (The title of that review: “OpenAI’s expensive macropad is designed specifically to annoy me.”)
Admittedly, it may take some time for new users to figure out how the Micro works and what to do with it.
Once I figured out how to program the keyboard to my liking, I found it to be a lot of fun. You can assign different ChatGPT sessions to specific buttons, allowing you to easily switch back and forth between all your different projects. When you combine this with the spell button, it makes the whole experience much more efficient and enjoyable.
But there is still a learning curve. The Micro’s buttons are color coded. White indicates that the agent is idle, blue indicates that the agent is thinking, green indicates that the task is complete, and red indicates an error. In addition to remembering which specific projects are coded to each button, you should keep this in mind.
The big question is whether or not using the Micro keyboard functionally is easier than continuing to work on a laptop. In short: Why spend a week learning how to program and operate this thing when I already know how to use a mouse and keyboard on my computer?
Ultimately, your experience with Micro will depend a lot on how much you use ChatGPT. Since I don’t use AI much on a daily basis, I’m probably not its target audience.
However, if you’re a ChatGPT power user, have $230 to spare, and as a vintage-looking piece of hardware with clicky buttons, the Micro probably isn’t the worst buy you can make — it might even brighten your day a bit.
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