7th July 2026
Pictet: Technology legend Steve Wozniak surveys the IT landscape
It’s 50 years since Steve Wozniak created the first Apple computer and changed the face of modern technology. And his curiosity and insights are as keen now as they were in 1976.
“You know, you can’t read anything these days without coming across AI,” he says. “It’s the hype of the day. I believe the “A” part is correct, but it isn’t intelligent. We don’t know how our brains work. We can’t decode our memories; we don’t really know what they are. What is an idea?”
He has a list of achievements and honours that make him tech royalty. But that hasn’t lost him his avuncular nature or innate friendliness. It’s easy to see how “Woz” – as he’s universally known – could inspire the kind of creativity and energy needed to drive a company like Apple. In his view, real intelligence has to have an emotional dimension.
“Computers are calculators. It’s not so much artificial intelligence as algorithmic intelligence. I see AI as a collection of super algorithms. In some things, it looks like it can do the job better than us. It can play the same game nine billion times, which we can’t do, and then it can beat humans at chess. But it’s not emotional. It operates on a purely mathematical, calculated basis. It presents well. The version of AI we’re most familiar with is large language models (LLMs), where the tech just learns how to speak with proper grammar. People mistake proper grammar for intelligence; they don’t challenge it. AI is able to sound like it’s coming from a human mouth. That makes people trust it.”
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