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Humane AI Pin review: not even close

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Re: Humane AI Pin review: not even close

#51
post #39
post #13

A 4/10 is way too high for this review, when the conclusion is it barely ever works and instead "just buy an Apple watch".

It's sleek and shiny. It powers on. The battery lasts. It has some unique input/output mechanisms. They have been able to solve manufacturing challenges at scale. All that should be more than enough to get it to a 4. I can imagine significantly worse devices deserving a 1 or 2.

It’s not clear yet that they’ve solved potential manufacturing challenges. The reviewer’s device worked, but the company would have vetted what they were sending. How many do they actually have on hand to deliver, and will they all be of top quality?

Re: Humane AI Pin review: not even close

#52
post #3

I suspect anyone who works in tech is completely unsurprised. Sure, the tech exists to make this thing possible, but it requires an Apple-sized company to execute on it, and even then it’s utility would be doubtful There’s been a lot of pulling back on smart speakers because they’re not quite where they need to be - and this promised far far more than a smart speaker from a tiny new company. The question is: did they…

just look at it - perplexity wrapper with native hardware. perplexity has vision! and besides perplexity, it just uses some simple function calling to get weather etc. I can build that in a day.

as of the ultimate vision, it is not yet clear, and it would be dumb for anyone to get into this "AI phone replacement" business. There are far better use cases tho, which are clear to execute, like Schiffman.

Re: Humane AI Pin review: not even close

#53
post #3

I suspect anyone who works in tech is completely unsurprised. Sure, the tech exists to make this thing possible, but it requires an Apple-sized company to execute on it, and even then it’s utility would be doubtful There’s been a lot of pulling back on smart speakers because they’re not quite where they need to be - and this promised far far more than a smart speaker from a tiny new company. The question is: did they…

They want to get enough attention to get acquired. Meanwhile I’m sure they believe their own hype to some extent, but it’s very easy to delude yourself when billions of dollars are on the line.

I cannot believe this paradigm, how new multi million dollar startups are basic wrappers that can be built by anyone interested enough in less than a day

Re: Humane AI Pin review: not even close

#55
post #3

I suspect anyone who works in tech is completely unsurprised. Sure, the tech exists to make this thing possible, but it requires an Apple-sized company to execute on it, and even then it’s utility would be doubtful There’s been a lot of pulling back on smart speakers because they’re not quite where they need to be - and this promised far far more than a smart speaker from a tiny new company. The question is: did they…

Not even an Apple-sized company will be able to successfully execute on it if the customer doesn't want the device to begin with. Look at VR headsets, for example. All the biggest tech behemoths burning through billions haven't been able to make the device category work, simply because no one wants to sit at home with a bulky headset strapped to their head shut off from their family and the outside world.

Similarly a little box pinned to your chest projecting a display on your palm showing the weather makes for a good tech demo, but ultimately there is no real world use case for this device.

Re: Humane AI Pin review: not even close

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here you are on Hacker News.

Of course. I come here to express my view about technology, and refine my arguments against it. What better place than the lion's den?

Is that what you imagine yourself to be doing here? - refining an argument? Thus far in this thread you seem struggling even to make one. The repeated insistence that, rather than participate in society, people prefer a remote cabin in Montana and all correspondence by parcel post, doesn't come close to qualifying.

Re: Humane AI Pin review: not even close

#57
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use to communicate with other humans?

You can speak to them directly.

"Last minute change folks, the venue is totally full. We're going to go somewhere else. Fred is still riding in on his penny-farthing -- who wants to call him to let him know? not it"

Re: Humane AI Pin review: not even close

#58
post #3

I suspect anyone who works in tech is completely unsurprised. Sure, the tech exists to make this thing possible, but it requires an Apple-sized company to execute on it, and even then it’s utility would be doubtful There’s been a lot of pulling back on smart speakers because they’re not quite where they need to be - and this promised far far more than a smart speaker from a tiny new company. The question is: did they…

Anyone that has used Siri would tell you that not even Apple could make this work

Re: Humane AI Pin review: not even close

#59
This and the Rabbit R1 are both trying to reduce the amount we use our phones, but I think this presents a fundamental misunderstanding of the jobs to be done on phones and how we actually use them.

There are broadly two use-cases of phones: content consumption, and utility. The former sucks time to increase "engagement" and has a bunch of social issues around it, the latter does not.

Both of these devices are trying to reduce the time we spend on our phones by addressing the utility aspect, but that's the wrong piece to focus on. The utility aspect is things like checking the time or calendar, booking an Uber, getting food delivered, etc. Many of these utilities however are essentially very optimised checkout funnels. Booking an Uber is really easy, because Uber are incentivised to make it easy. Same with ordering pizza. Taking a highly optimised flow and sticking voice on top isn't going to save time and is going to cause issues. These devices solve the wrong problem.

If a company really wants to improve the world by reducing phone usage (rather than just build their own platform to rent-seek on), maybe they should be looking at social networking, communication, federation, etc.

Re: Humane AI Pin review: not even close

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. I come here to express my view about technology, and refine my arguments against it. What better place than the lion's den?

Is that what you imagine yourself to be doing here? - refining an argument? Thus far in this thread you seem struggling even to make one. The repeated insistence that, rather than participate in society, people prefer a remote cabin in Montana and all correspondence by parcel post, doesn't come close to qualifying.

Thanks for your feedback.
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