Emerging AI Gadgets

Witnessing the launch of the Humane AI pin at an eye-watering cost of $699, which doesn’t even include a monthly subscription, and now the Rabbit R1 for $199, but with no subscription, remains a mystery to me. This is mainly because the value proposition offered by these AI assistant gadgets is negligible, considering the existence of existing assistants like Siri and Alexa. Sure, they aren’t currently using the most advanced AI features, but I would be quite confident saying that Apple and Amazon aren’t sleeping.

Check out Marques Brownlee’s “The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed… For Now” and “Rabbit R1: Barely Reviewable” for in-depth reviews of both these gadgets.

But let’s talk about the elephant in the room. How can we trust these devices with our data when everything is stored in the cloud? This adds another attack vector for baddies to exploit our personal data. How is this data processed and used by these companies? How can you trust them? These are some questions that would keep me awake at night. As privacy is a big concern, I expect that the winners in this field will be companies that provide on-device processing and storage by eliminating reliance on the cloud.

To me, AI assistant gadgets try to trick people into thinking they provide easy access to AI, while in reality, it’s all an illusion that these devices have any value. While my views will most likely differ from those of the general public, time will tell how these AI gadgets will compete with the existing mobile devices market. I trust they have conducted some decent market research before building these AI assistant gadgets.

But for now, I’m fine using ChatGPT on my phone, snapping a photo and asking it to describe what’s in the photo while keeping in mind that the answer I’m getting might be some wild hallucination trip.