- Framework has just announced its next major product event
- The founder of the forever upgradeable PC company has some thoughts on AI and the cloud
- It is still committed to selling systems that you own and can modify as needed
Framework, the computer company fixated on letting you define and endlessly update your PC, is now taking on the cloud, AI and the lack of PC ownership by invoking a quote from the man who arguably inspired the PC revolution: Steve Jobs.
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but the center of the computing universe has shifted. It happened so fast that we barely had time to adjust. While we once thought more of local computing power to process work, replies, photos and games, now we’re all fixated on computing delivered to us from the cloud and in the form of artificial intelligence like ChatGPT and Gemini.
For Framework, which announced its upcoming product launch event on April 21 in a new manifesto post by company founder Nirav Patel, this is a call to action.
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Patel begins by explaining that the tectonic shift in computing has put cloud demands in check, and that consumers will inevitably lose out to meet the needs of these services and the AI that runs on them.
“We see this in the rapidly increasing cost of silicon and all the devices that depend on it, the shift from ownership to subscription, and the rise of closed black boxes over an open ecosystem. What does it all mean? The industry is asking you to own nothing and be happy.”
This lack of ownership, as Patel sees it, contradicts what Steve Jobs told us decades ago: “the computer is the bicycle of the mind.”
Framework claims that is no longer the case. Instead of bicycles, computers are now a ‘self-driving car that takes you directly to your destination’.
To understand the gravity of that statement, we need to look back at what Jobs really meant. As he put it in a 1990 interview: “
“We humans are tool builders, and we can make tools that amplify these inherent abilities that we have to spectacular sizes. So for me, the computer has always been a bicycle of the brain, something that takes us far beyond our inherent abilities.”
AI is instead the self-driving car, and instead of us using computers to augment our abilities, we’ve taken our hands off the wheel and let the AI drive.
It’s a depressing thought.
A framework for reality
However, Framework does not give up. “As long as there’s a person in the world who still wants to own their computing assets, we’ll be here to build the hardware that makes it possible,” Patel wrote.
That sounds good, but I have to ask. For what purpose?
Sure, we liked the Framework Laptop 13 DIY Edition when we reviewed it last year, but despite the ability to easily replace nearly every component, our reviewer noted the complexity of installing Windows. It works fine if you want to run Linux, but it will appeal to a much smaller set of users.
If this is some kind of Vox Populi system, then it should be something for everyone. DIY is inherently limiting. While I think it’s safe to say that most consumers want systems that are easy to repair. They don’t want to be the ones to build or repair them. People still like to buy ready-made products, even if they lack some choice.
They may not notice that they are slowly losing control of the system, the software and where the answers are coming from, but I bet most people don’t care. They are not picky about who answers, or unfortunately the quality of those answers. See how quickly they adopted ChatGPT even when it was still hallucinatory.
So yes, I applaud Framework’s integrity and know there is a market for their repairable DIY systems, but it’s not a huge one, and they alone won’t stem the tide of AI-powered systems propelling us to our next inevitable destination.
I’m not calling Framework’s efforts Quixotic, but there’s a pretty big gulf between owing nothing and building everything. Our computers, whether delivered complete and more or less non-upgradable or as a collection of infinitely interchangeable components, are still vehicles for expression and production. They are still the faithful two-wheelers of our minds.
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