What people are getting wrong this week: AI-powered gadgets

Since the announcement of the Humane AI pin in 2023, technology stakeholders and early adopters have been very interested in portable/wearable AI assistants. Unfortunately, technical visions of an easier, shinier, more seamless lifestyle powered by always-ready AI brains were shattered by the launch of the first two products into space. They’re just not very good. At least for now.

Opinions both The Humane AI Pin and Teenage Engineering’s Rabbit R1 not positive. The general consensus: maybe it would be nice to have a personal AI device that you could turn on at any time and boost your brain, but none of these products are that. Not only do they not meet expectations, but they also do not work very well.

Humane AI Pin is the more ambitious, “grave” product of the pair. Retailing for $699 and requiring a monthly subscription fee to operate, Pin is advertised as “your assistant and second brain that keeps you present and fluid,” but in reality the AI ​​is tardy and often confuses, and battery life is brief. brief and the UI is terrible, leading unbiased technology reviewer Marques Brownlee announces the Humane AI pin “worst product I have ever reviewed“

While it functions very similarly to the AI ​​Pin, the Rabbit R1 is more like a toy, both in appearance and price. It’s a unthreatening orange model with a gigantic knob and costs “only” $199 before the subscription fee. But the AI ​​is often wrong, battery life is brief, and the UI is terrible, leading Marques Brownlee to declare the R1″Barely verifiable.“

All this apart from the unanswered question at the heart of both devices: whether humans are equal to want dedicated AI device? As many have noted, neither Pin nor Rabbit does anything your phone can’t already do.

“Trust me” products and paying full price for semi-finished products

Both Rabbit and Pin promise more features in the future, including seamless integration with other devices and the ability for the AI ​​assistant to perform multi-step tasks with a plain command like “book me a vacation to Mexico.” All of this points to a future without phones and powered by artificial intelligence, which has a certain charm. But for now, Pin and Rabbit are “trust me” products: things that could be really cold – when the software is updated, integration is completed, bugs are fixed, etc.

It’s one thing to improve an existing product after purchasing it through software updates – for example, video games No man’s sky AND Fallout 76 were huge disappointments at launch, but they’re pretty good now, and Tesla’s self-driving feature is now more than an empty promise on car touchscreens – but there’s nothing to guarantee that Humane’s Pin won’t do as well as Juicero or Teenage Engineers won’t forget about R1 and will go back to making high-priced (but extremely popular) drum machines, leaving consumers with high-priced paperweights to store next to their Zune player.

Avoid early adopter regret by living in the past

To avoid the buyer’s regret that can result from this almost vaporware, you can simply wait to purchase tech products that are at least 18 months senior. Skip all those buggy launches, every game console you buy will have tons of games, and your personal AI assistant will have tons of apps. If you wait even longer, say three years, you can save a lot of money by purchasing everything at a reduced price due to the release of version 2.0.

Most people let the dust settle before moving on to something modern anyway, but for first-time users, that wait is tough. Fortunately, I have a solution. It involves virtual time travel. If you were to carefully choose the technological media you utilize, and each device you owned only displayed information that was several years out of date, last-generation hardware would become something modern, at least to you. In the past this would have been almost impossible, but now it is doable. To make this happen, you must first purchase a personal AI assistant such as Rabbit R1 or Humane AI Pin. With your AI assistant at hand, explain the situation in plain English. Tell him to rewind every tech story three years so you never know when something will come out. It integrates seamlessly with your phone, computer and other devices, turning plain commands into intricate actions and editing web pages and YouTube videos on the fly so you can – on second thought, it won’t work. Maybe just wait until everything starts working.

A quick, unrelated note on whether Donald Trump farts a lot

Last week in this column, I assessed the truth or falsity of various stories surrounding Donald Trump’s criminal trial. I rated the notion that the former president farted in court as “false,” but I heard from Brett Meiselas of Meidas’ touch“news” source who wrote: “Our reports are based solely on facts provided by experts and we would not report anything if they were not well documented and confirmed.”

Perhaps the journalists present in the courtroom believe that reporting on flatulence is beneath their dignity and therefore do not want to reveal their facts. Anyway, I changed the phrase “Will Donald Trump fart in court?” to “unconfirmed”. No one can prove it to him NO fart, and Meiselas passionately supports his story, for sure, no matter. Maybe he farts all the time.

(I don’t want to think about Donald Trump anymore because it’s depressing.)