The AI hardware is finally shipping, and there are high expectations, but even the worst smartphones seem like they're probably better, considering what the experience was like at the first high-profile launch. .
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There are great expectations for AI. In theory, these models could one day automate tasks and complete them faster than humans. But in the early stages, the experience is often inconsistent, ridiculously error-prone, and very slow. In other words, it's pretty bad.
That's why these new AI gadgets are so hard to swallow. Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1 started shipping in his April and have been widely criticized so far. Pins are very experienced, overheat quickly and are often very slow to respond. The Rabbit R1, on the other hand, has trouble recognizing where it is, its battery doesn't last all day, and it often ends up doing things completely wrong. Ahead of my friend Joe Marling's review, we take a look at his behind-the-scenes experience. digital trends It was quite a thing, often filled with laughter and obvious dissatisfaction at how stupid and stupid Usagi's questions were answered. His verdict was ultimately “a nice looking $199 paperweight.” This tells us that there is a device that literally tells him the temperature will be 78 degrees for him. Celsius When asked about the weather.
And these AI gadgets don't promise anything truly revolutionary, either. Essentially, it's just using a voice interface with AI to do things you already do, like ordering food or asking questions.
they're just bad at their jobs.
Do you know what's really good in that field? your phone.
The idea of having AI do things for you is appealing, but even in areas where AI is best suited, it seems like mobile phones will always be faster, more consistent, and more accurate. Better in that task. Demo by Marques Brownlee Comparing the recognition speed of the Cybertruck using multimodal AI with Humane AI Pin to the recognition speed of the Galaxy S24 Ultra using Google Lens further confirms this.
But I would argue that even the worst, cheapest smartphone probably has a better experience than these AI gadgets. Even a super cheap $200 Android smartphone can use Google Lens for these multimodal AI experiences, and easily use ChatGPT or Gemini for the rest.
I feel that the appeal of these AI gadgets should all be in the hardware.
Rabbit R1 seems to be completely missing the point. It's just a rectangle that you can carry in your pocket, and there's nothing you can't do with your phone already (especially considering that your phone can technically do the entire experience that Rabbit uses). Humane AI Pin presents a truly compelling vision in hardware, but clearly fails good It didn't reach the target.
AI is interesting, and I hope that fun and useful gadgets will be created from it. However, there are many people out there who say that today's cell phones are so boring that these gadgets will replace them, but I disagree with that opinion. Cell phones have gotten so much better, but it will take some truly amazing work for new AI-centric devices to surpass what we've been building over the past 20 years. And as of now, AI gadgets are not off to a good start.
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