{"id":553020,"date":"2026-07-16T17:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/553020\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T17:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T17:10:11","slug":"why-is-openai-selling-a-chatgpt-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/553020\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is OpenAI selling a ChatGPT basketball?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have heard that OpenAI released its first piece of hardware this week: a $230 mini keyboard<\/a>. You may not have heard that alongside this \u201ccommand center for agentic work,\u201d OpenAI also released a ChatGPT basketball. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis basketball comes from the Pause. Play. Prompt. campaign, a physical reminder that creativity doesn\u2019t just live on our screens,\u201d the product listing explains. I was not able to find any other mention of the \u201cPause. Play. Prompt.\u201d campaign on OpenAI\u2019s website, but I gather that this is OpenAI\u2019s way of telling people not to spend all day on Codex. <\/p>\n

Who says tech companies aren\u2019t thinking about our mental health?<\/p>\n

The basketball will cost you $70, or about 56 million input tokens for GPT-5. It\u2019s a 100% rubber ball, which is a better fit for outdoor play due to its weather resistance than the more expensive leather balls you\u2019ll find on professional basketball courts. I am pleased to know that OpenAI is envisioning a world where playing sports outside is possible, even as the generative AI boom accelerates tech companies\u2019 carbon emissions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to imagine the target customer for the ChatGPT basketball. Who is this for? <\/p>\n

Wander outside the safety of an AI-pilled, tokenmaxxing Silicon Valley and one might worry about getting bullied for bringing a ChatGPT basketball to the court. You could not pay me $70 to walk onto a community court in Philadelphia with this ChatGPT basketball. (If it were free swag from a conference, it could pass as ironic \u2014 I cherish my \u201c#FACEBOOK\u201d tote, which is airbrushed like a 2000s bar mitzvah party favor<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In defense of the ChatGPT basketball, the AI industry isn\u2019t exactly known for its product-market fit instincts. May the Humane Ai Pin<\/a> rest in peace.<\/p>\n

\"\"Image Credits:OpenAI<\/p>\n

Alongside that $70 artifact, OpenAI is also selling a line of merch with inspirational reminders, like \u201cGood research takes time,\u201d which I would argue is the perfect attire for a startup founder meeting with investors who are demanding faster growth. There\u2019s also a certain je ne sais quoi to the $175 quarter-zip<\/a> that says \u201cresearch\u201d in cursive. The product description says that \u201cit features a crisp collar that reminisces on our days in academia,\u201d which could alienate the \u201cI never went to college because I\u2019m a coding savant\u201d crowd. (Also, can an object reminisce on your days in academia? Should I expect grammatically sound sentences from people who write their emails with ChatGPT?)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with a bit of company swag, though. If OpenAI is looking to commission any ceramic artists to honor company history through functional tableware, I would like to throw my hat in the ring. <\/p>\n

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You may have heard that OpenAI released its first piece of hardware this week: a $230 mini keyboard.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,2670,1302,61,60,1682,80],"class_list":["post-553020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-chatgpt","tag-exclusive","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-openai","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}