Wearable AI Pins: I’m Skeptical
AI-focused personal devices are back in the news. Things didn’t go so well last time: a pair of much-anticipated devices from Humane and Rabbit were legendarily bad. But maybe this time will be different? OpenAI has announced that they’re working on a new AI-focused device (or family of devices) with Jony Ive and rumor has it that Apple is working on something similar.
There’s no official information about what the new devices will look like, but it’s widely believed that both companies are working on some kind of wearable pin specifically designed for AI, with a camera and microphone so it’s always aware of your surroundings.
Jony makes a great case for why an AI-focused device might look very different from anything that currently exists:
The products that we’re using to deliver and connect us to unimaginable technology—they’re decades old. And so it’s just common sense to at least think “surely there’s something beyond these legacy products.”
That makes a ton of sense on paper, and it seems obvious that both teams are well-positioned to make the best possible version of whatever this thing might be. And yet… I dunno. I just don’t see it. Normally I’m first in line for (almost) anything Jony Ive makes, but I’m having a hard time getting excited about the rumored form factor.
First, I’m really skeptical about always-on cameras and microphones (or even sometimes-on cameras that are always pointed at other people). They enable some cool demos, and they’re somewhat useful, but I’m not sure the benefits are worth the downsides.
And second, regardless of whether or not you like the cameras and microphones, a pin feels like the wrong form factor.
Let’s be clear: always-on contextual awareness has genuine use cases, and it makes an amazing demo:
Hey, robot: when I ran into Bob at the park last summer, what restaurant did he recommend for my trip to London?
I mean, how cool is that? Who wouldn’t want that kind of magic?
In practice, though, I’m just not sure how often I’d actually use that. I can think of a million uses for an AI I can easily talk to throughout the day, but not that many uses for an AI that can see what I see. Which would be fine if this was just another feature that could be crammed into the cell phone I already carry. But if we’re talking about a new device that I need to buy and upgrade and charge and apparently clip on to my shirt every morning… it needs to be pretty damn useful, and it needs to not cause me a lot of headaches.
Speaking of headaches, here are two things many people hate: being filmed by strangers, and AI. I predict, by the way, that the average person on the street is going to get more angry about AI over the next couple of years, not less. Wearing a prominent device that makes it obvious that my AI is watching and listening to everyone around me? That sounds like a great way to have a lot of unpleasant interactions with angry strangers. (Pro tip: explaining to an angry stranger that actually, your device has a little light right here that would be lit if you were recording them, but it isn’t lit, so everything is cool—that will get you nowhere).
As a user, having a visible AI camera feels like it buys me a lot of aggro. As a brand, being known for putting AI cameras everywhere doesn’t seem like a good move. These days, neither Apple nor OpenAI have brand capital to burn, and this feels like a needless self-inflicted injury.
At first glance, perhaps ambient awareness would make sense at work: there’s less expectation of privacy, especially if everyone wears a company-issued AI, and it’s easy to imagine legitimate use cases. On the other hand: in my experience, corporate legal departments hate the fact that employees keep putting stupid things in email, because anything in email is potentially discoverable in court. It’s hard to imagine legal being excited about the idea of also recording every dumb thing someone says in a hallway conversation.
But accepting arguendo that it would be useful to have a new kind of device built specifically for AI and that you might want it to have cameras and microphones, I’m not convinced a wearable pin is the right choice.
If you absolutely must have a camera mounted on your body, a pin attached to your shirt isn’t a great place for it. The pin goes blind every time you put on a sweater, and your hands and laptop screen are always blocking its view, and you frequently turn your head to look at things that aren’t visible to the pin. If you’ve ever watched police bodycam footage, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
You know what doesn’t have any of those problems? Smart glasses.
Audio has similar problems: you could mount a good-enough microphone on a pin, but it’ll never be as clear as the microphones in your earbuds. And how is the device going to talk back to you? Are you walking around with a speakerphone strapped to your chest? That doesn’t sound awesome.
You know what doesn’t have any of those problems? Earbuds.
Earbuds are small and cheap and unobtrusive and they’re the best possible way to have audio interactions. If you want more, Apple is rumored to be working on AirPods with cameras, and at least one company is working on earbuds that can process barely-audible whispers.
If you want additional capability beyond earbuds, smart glasses are a great option. But a shirt-mounted pin? Beyond getting to live your childhood Star Trek fantasies, I’m not sure what that gets you.
Everything I’ve just said is profoundly obvious—Apple and OpenAI presumably have a plan that makes sense anyway.
Maybe the rumors are wrong, and the devices in question aren’t wearable pins. Maybe they’ve come up with some kind of clever interaction model where a pin makes sense. Maybe they’ve thought of some uses of ambient awareness that are so great that everyone will need one and we’ll just get used to everyone wearing cameras. Or—just maybe—this direction is a shiny mistake (see: every VR product ever made).
I’m dying to find out.