- Framework just announced its next big product event
- The forever-upgradeable PC company’s founder has some thoughts about AI and the cloud
- It’s still committed to selling systems that you own and can change as needed
Framework, the computer company fixated on letting you define and endlessly update your PC, is now taking a stand against the cloud, AI, and the lack of PC ownership, doing so 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 computer universe has shifted. It happened so quickly, we barely had time to adjust. Whereas we once thought more about local computing power for processing work, answers, images, and play, we’re now all fixated on compute delivered to us from the cloud and in the form of AI like ChatGPT and Gemini.
For Framework, which announced its upcoming April 21st product launch event in a new manifesto post by company founder Nirav Patel, this is a call to action.
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Patel starts by explaining that the tectonic computing shift has put cloud demands in control, and that, to serve the needs of these services and the AI that runs on them, consumers will inevitably lose.
“We see this in the rapidly rising costs of silicon and all of 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 this all mean? The industry is asking you to own nothing and be happy.”
That lack of ownership is, as Patel sees it, at odds with what Steve Jobs told us decades ago: “the computer is the bicycle of the mind.”
Framework contends that’s no longer so. Instead of bicycles, computers are now a ‘self-driving car that takes you directly to the destination.’
To understand the gravity of that statement, we need to look back at what Jobs really meant. Here’s how he put it in a 1990 interview: “
“We humans are tool builders and we can fashion tools that amplify these inherent abilities that we have to spectacular magnitudes. So, for me, the computer has always been a bicycle of the mind, something that takes us far beyond our inherent capabilities.”
AI is, instead, the self-driving car, and instead of us using computers to expand our abilities, we’ve taken our hands off the wheel and let the AI do the driving.
It’s a depressing thought.
A framework for reality
Framework, however, is not giving up. “As long as there is a person in the world who still wants to own their means of computation, we will be here to build the hardware that enables it,” wrote Patel.
That sounds good, but I have to ask. To what end?
Sure, we liked the Framework Laptop 13 DIY Edition when we reviewed it last year, but despite the ability to easily swap out virtually all components, our reviewer noted the complexities of installing Windows. It works fine if you want to run Linux, but that will appeal to a far smaller set of users.
If this is sort of the Vox Populi system, then it has to be something for everybody. DIY is inherently limiting. While I think it’s safe to say most consumers want easily repairable systems. They don’t want to be the ones to build or repair them. People still like to buy finished products, even if they do lack some choice.
They may not notice slowly losing control of the system, software, and where the answers come from, but I’d wager most don’t care. They aren’t picky about who answers or, sadly, the quality of those answers. Look at how quickly they adopted ChatGPT, even when it was still hallucinating.
So, yes, I applaud Framework’s integrity and know there’s a market for their repairable DIY systems, but it’s not a big one, and they alone will not stem the tide of AI-powered systems driving us to our next inevitable destination.
I’m not calling Framework’s efforts Quixotic, but there’s a fairly large chasm between owing nothing and building everything. Our computers, whether delivered complete and more or less non-upgradable or as a collection of endlessly swappable components, are still vehicles for expression and production. They’re still the trusty two-wheelers for our minds.
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