gadget
It was proposed as a possible successor to the smartphone. But now that the first reviews have arrived, the “Humane AI Pin” is disappointing. The thing can’t even set an alarm.
Remind me of a task. Set the alarm. Say how much something costs. Send an email. These are tasks that a smart AI assistant should be able to do. But the hyped AI Pin from the company Humane can’t do it. This is evident from the first reviews of the device, which was even said to possibly replace our smartphone.
The examples come from a video that tech site The Verge posted on Tiktok. His reviewer tried the AI Pin, and all of the above proved impossible. Even looking up the route to a coffee bar turned out to be a step too far. Ironically, the device suggested using a smartphone for this. “Most voice assistants can’t do much,” says The Verge. “The AI Pin can do much less.”
That’s quite disappointing for a gadget that was highly expected. It was presented at the end of last year amid great interest. It looks like a square chest pin with a built-in AI assistant. When you tap it you can speak to the assistant and give commands. A laser projector can project a virtual screen onto your hand to show data, but that apparently doesn’t work at all. Text is difficult to read, the projection jumps continuously, and in direct sunlight it is downright unusable.
And that for a device that costs no less than 700 dollars. According to The Verge, the answer to the question “should you buy this” is very clear: “Nope, now-uh, no way.”
Recognize the octopus
Other American reviewers were also very negative about the thing. Tech site Cnet called it “incomplete and unreliable.” The reviewer says he “doesn’t want to keep wearing the thing if it doesn’t become more useful and reliable.”
Engadget calls the AI Pin “a solution for no technological problem.” The reviewer describes a hilarious example of how the AI Pin, which is equipped with a camera, could not describe what it saw when standing in front of his kitchen island. However, making the pin say what you are looking at is one of the things it should be able to do. Even the rather easy question “am I looking at an octopus?”, while there was no such creature anywhere on that kitchen island, did not lead to a reasonable answer.
The New York Times noticed that the AI Pin incorrectly responded that a bagel it was looking at was unhealthy because it contained a lot of sugar, which was not the case. When the reporter asked how to make the bagel tastier, the thing responded with a recipe to make a bagel from scratch. And the square root of 49 according to the AI Pin is… 49.
Of all the reviews that appeared online in recent days, there was little positive to report about the AI pin. The time when that device replaces our smartphone is clearly still far away.
