The Humane AI Pin Launches Its Campaign to Replace Phones
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Humane AI Pin - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38208016 - Nov 2023 (206 comments)
This is why Alexa (and other voice assistants) are only really valuable in the home, and typically as communal devices... its mode is public by default. "What's the weather?", "Play The Beatles", "Add milk to my shopping list" are not expected to be private. How does a device like Humane offer us an "incognito mode", where everyone within earshot doesn't know exactly what I'm doing?
People often discuss private topics on a train, and don't care that others might be listening.
People talk loudly on the phone when in public. Some even talk on speaker phone.
But noone ever talks to Siri or Google or Alexa in public.
Why is that?
Does everyone else look askance at them and think they're being rude by doing so? Also yes.
Because it looks like you’re talking to yourself, and people tend to avoid people who talk to themselves. Especially on the train.
I see this as another war on privacy by the population of extroverted over-sharers that inhabit social media.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/computer-system-transcribes-words-...
Recognizing the food you are holding and coming up with a calorie count was the only part of the demo I found genuinely cool, but I also know that AI tech isn't far enough along to get anywhere close to accurate results right now in the real world.
Something like AI Pin might be ubiquitous like the smartphone at some point in the future, but right now isn't the time for it, and Humane may or may not be the company to eventually crack the code.
this product has always been about AI—what they launched is almost exactly what they pitched me. their expectation of where the world going ended up being prescient.
That's a software problem, though. A company who solves that and does it well will be a killer app and doesn't need gimmicky hardware.
And that's also pretty much just OpenAI's API.
Fun fact. It was completely wrong. That wasn't 15g of Protein. You would need like 3x that much for 15g of protein.
It was also wrong about the solar eclipse.
The food thing is cool for that use case because calorie counting via an app is tedious. But holding up a dragon fruit and asking "can I eat this?" is beyond ridiculous.
As soon as Siri becomes good by leveraging llm, Apple is bound to dominate here. You don't even need another device to get half of what this does. Next gen airpods/ apple watches provide similar use cases.
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/AAPL:NASDAQ?sa=X&window...
Humane has beaten other companies to the punch, if you count a flailing noodle arm as a "punch". This device clearly needs significantly more work on the ecosystem, accuracy of answers (it gave 2 wrong answers in the video), and actual input. The projector idea is absolutely terrible, and Im certain this will essentially end up a voice only device for the people that do buy it. The projector wont work outdoors at all, and even indoors, it looks terrible to actually use.
A more natural speaking voice. Bluetooth earphones for a more personal interaction experience with the device (maybe even control with your hand in front of the camera and receive audio feedback through the earphones)? Color projector with more fidelity as a new form of interaction (can use it like a screen for short periods, but it's not the main interaction method).
I'd also think some advancements for on-device processing of daily life/events could be really helpful. For example, being able to have it sync to a cloud drive as a repository of my docs (like Google NotebookLM), or holding up a piece of paper in front of it and having it record it and process that info. Just so it's able to better operate as an analogue of a real life PERSONAL assistant, rather than an assistant that just searches the internet for me and tells me what's on my phone.
I don't want to get my hopes up, and it definitely has a tough road ahead of it to disrupt the industry, but I think it really could become an incredibly useful product.
Do we have holograms tech yet?
And then you could do video calls on the same device too.
Anyway, it's cold season now in Europe, and it's interesting how much less useful my Apple watch is when it's almost always covered with a sleeve.
Something that goes on top of your clothes makes sense.
I for one have no particular desire to be part of your "context" (nor the company's training data set) without knowing it.
But, like the Apple Vision Pro (which I don't think is as DOA as this), I'm most curious to know where this goes in 5-10 years.
Cause they aren't Apple, just the cheap knock-offs
Not only is it worse than holding a smartphone while being less useful, street kids are going to pull these off people at a phenomenal rate, leaving people with just unhappy memories alongside a battery pack swimming somewhere inside their jumper.
I can't believe I didn't think of this.
Imagine a dev conference for these things... The first headline would be "Humane AI Pin Developers Cleaned Out". A group of bad actors could (would) just run down a line/through a room and snatch these one after the other with nothing more than a weak magnet slowing them down.
Yes they can be locked down but even with Apple and Google-level measures implemented over the years phones still get stolen to be sent to China (or wherever) and parted out for pennies on the dollar for the thief. There's also the usual problem of a lot of this being opportunity/impulse crime and a lot of criminals are just going to think "I don't know what that is, looks expensive", grab it, and see what they can get for it later.
This is probably the best example of the "Silicon Valley elites in their bubble disconnected from the real world" tropes that are always floating around.
Because it’s not going to happen.
There were about a trillion sets of wired white earbuds pointing to iPods/iPhones for about a decade plus. Sure, there were some thefts, but to say they happened at a “phenomenal rate” would be nonsense. And iPods/iPhones were orders of magnitudes more popular than this Pin will ever be.
Street kids won’t even know what a Pin is.
A lot of the interactions seem to take longer vs me just taking my phone out and quickly doing what I need to do. Its compelling given this is a v1 of the product so it will only get better from here but not completely sold on it just yet.
I'm sure Steve Jobs rolled over in his grave when they lead with product specs over "why buy this."
Makes you wonder about the veracity of the AI (or the accuracy of the demo). Looks like a cool product either way.
pass
“No wake word so it’s not always listening”… you just activate it with your voice?
People have been eagerly waiting to hear what this secretive startup company has been working all these years, especially after the recent funding rounds. All of this to be disappointed with a half baked v1 and launch video.
All that aside, I think it's brave of them to enter a competitive market and introduce a unique product that could have potential but at this price point, I'll have to pass. Hope future iterations get better and continues to grow.
Congratulations to all the team at Humane who's been working on this over the years, especially those who took the risk of leaving Apple to join a startup.
But I also understand this is how many new technologies releases go (lots of WTFs and lots of oohs and aahs). I think it really has potential, but the team will have to be adaptive and quick to respond to make sure the Pin can really grab hold of what the consumer wants.
Now, this thing's introduced and what? The laser interface seems clunky, no idea how it holds up on a bright day outside. Most of the interactions are done by voice which, at least for me, have never been satisfactory on way more powerful and polished devices. Then there's the privacy - I'm assuming that for this thing to work I need to give it access to everything. How long has this company been operating and battle testing its security? How good or bad its track record is with regard to selling my data? And yes, I know that my smartphone already knows everything about me. But those things are built by either Apple or Google which at least have some track record and I know what I can expect from them, more or less.
I still don't understand what am I getting here? What's the revolutionary, exciting thing? The AI? The lasers? The voice interface? The always-on-your-person?
If I remove the lasers, add a screen and a OpenAI/whateverLLM interface & integration I get what? An Apple Watch (or Google or whatever) that's 1-2 years out probably.
What's nice however that they're trying things. The laser thing does seem cool.
edit: Commas, sentence structure.
Also:
To put on the Ai Pin involves placing a magnetic battery pack on the inside of a shirt or other piece of clothing, and letting a magnet on the Pin itself hold the system in place. It’s altogether about 55 grams, or 2 ounces, nearly the weight of a tennis ball. People with pacemakers should consult their doctors about potential magnetic interference, Chaudhri says.
It's pretty heavy and the backside of the clip is a magnetic battery pack.
Hah, yeah man, that's totally what it is!
this is probably the most privacy-forward hardware device on the market—you have to physically be making contact with the device for it to begin listening (at which point an LED is prominently visible) and it will stop listening as soon as you break contact.
I often have to deal with communicating with people in other languages this would save me so much time.
..or so they say
However,
- he's not touching it during the phone call - it's not super clear in the demo when he's saying "your engagement comes through your voice, touch, gesture, or the lasering display"
How do you engage through (a) voice or (b) gesture then?
Are you using it daily?
Have you changed your habits?
Echo devices, for example, were sold as having a "hardware mute switch" from day one. Sure enough, teardown after teardown[0] has confirmed the hardware mute switch actually physically disables the mic (cuts power to the ADC, mic lines, etc).
If this is implemented in software it's no different than a phone and worse than an Echo.
[0] - https://electronupdate.blogspot.com/2021/01/amazon-echo-flex...
An LED comes on... Is it bright? Can you see it direct line of sight from your eye to your shirt without fussing with it? Is the LED just there for others to know the owner isn't recording the conversation?
Can the camera passively watch in hardware with a firmware update? Is the physical contact for audio capture in hardware or software?
But that means their hypothetical calorie-count example only works if you actively remember "I am eating, I should tell the pin to record my eating". Same with many other things; the wrist-worn smart devices are useful exactly because they are always recording, they are somewhat ambient.
I understand why they do it, I even applaud them for thinking about privacy, it might even be necessary (cough..Google glass...cough), but I feel they have to walk a tightrope between a rock and a hard place to bring privacy-consciousness and useful features together.
Self reported data is always annoyingly unreliable.
This product would probably be better than self reporting, but not good enough.
The privacy issue is annoying thing. If it was a on-device ai model things might be easier to accept. But I such a device is further in to the future.
That being said I positively LOATHE the idea of it being some cloud based subscription service, as inevitably, no matter how much the founders of these companies talk about privacy or security, it will become yet another corporate data harvester that spies on you and sells your personal information to the highest bidder, or provides a backdoor for governments or other non-state entities to surveil you. Money talks, and morals walk. Let's not forget Ring gives LEA footage from peoples door cameras just for asking nicely with no way for users to opt-out.
Personally, as much as I want something like this (Though the dorky badge format is a big miss for me) I will never, ever, EVER go for something like this unless I OWN the software and that software runs on hardware I OWN as well. I'm sure a lot of folks will get excited by this thing, but as it stands now it's just bog-standard run of the mill, every day dystopian nightmare fuel for me.
> Google learned a similar lesson in 2018 after it launched Google Clips, a body-worn camera that used algorithms to automatically snap photos. Female users tended to end up with an abundance of cloud shots when they intended to record what was in front of them, because the device was not designed to account for bodies with breasts
This feels like it could have been a classic Silicon Valley scene but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was designed at Google's secret Castro office.
> Tapping the Pin and then moving a palm into its field of view activates its laser, which projects images and text onto a user’s hand at a wavelength that produces a blueish-green tinge, a 720p-resolution system Humane calls a Laser Ink Display. Tilting the hand navigates between displayed options and a swatting gesture swipes to a different menu. Users “click” on an option by tapping their thumb and index finger together and close their hand briefly to return to a home screen.
Okay, that's freaking cool. Anyone here willing to take the $700 plunge to test this? I want to know if it's as ridiculous as it sounds.
01:49 > The AI pin privacy chip also protects it from being exploited, which means if it's ever physically tampered with, it will require service from humane to restore operation.
Wave over wake
Then do some type of magic proximity sensor to begin capture, then detect if hand is facing in or out, to then wake. The tap and hold is too much, and the marketing interplay of magic wand wave as the open command could have made powerful ads.
That said, this is still the best glimpse of the future. Incredible job by the team
I assume the problem is space. They are basically out of space for more features. I still pitch my idea for a smart bracer though. Like the thing in mass effect or the pipboy.
They need to narrow down the scope of this product. It's a product with an unusual form factor. They should Make it perfect just for a few things. And don't try to kill the phone or any other device.
There is a beautiful use case for this. It's like an apple watch with a sim. Out working in the field, with things in hand, ask for whatever you need to ask. It can even do FaceTime showing what's in the field. And enable police patrol to approach a target and use remote intervention to neutralize a situation.
What's the opposite of spam?
Did it actually sign you up? The UX when I just tried didn't make it clear at all if it worked.
You press it to activate it. That’s when it starts listening. It’s not always on.
This is gonna be a hard sell, or lead to achingly short dates.
Why are you trying to do something totally different with what appears to be an obviously constrained interaction paradigm?
- What's the argument for using this instead of a full-fat computer with ambient capabilities? (think iPhone/Siri or Android/Assistant)
- How does Humane expect the $699 price point to develop in the future? Is the intention to bring prices down, or capabilities up?
For comparison, my main smartphone is cheaper by both measures. You can go buy an iPhone 13 ($600) and hook it up to T-Mobile's Connect plans for $180/year ($15/month, 3.5 GB/month unlimited talk/text).
This frames itself as a smartphone replacement, but realistically it is a rich person's toy.
One question is does it work over Wifi when there is no wireless coverage?
Also what would roaming costs do when you travel?
I can only think of one use case that would be awesome that I couldn’t get with an iPhone: automatic food tracking.
Having a camera mounted near your neck you could use computer vision/AI to track everything you eat and automatically tell you how many calories you’ve consumed for the day. This would be way better than manually logging food intake like we have to do now, and could be very helpful for losing weight or just staying healthy.
This reminds me a lot of Google Glass. Cool technology, but they forgot the WHY.
But beyond that, aren't voice assistants kind of dead? Sure it is probably much better powered by today's LLMs. I think it was the function and not the form that killed that market. (Alexa, Google Home, Siri and so on...)
For $700 and a $24/mo sub subscription... Lets see if it sticks.
This pin is a great input/sensing device feeding an AI which gets an incredible amount of information about the owner’s context.
Combined with an old good computer (desktop/smartphone/tablet..) this could be scary revolutionary:-)
It would be cool to have a personal assistant on your body capable of setting appointments, answering questions, contacting people and what not without having to look at and tap a screen. Audio interface is a fantastic use case of LLMs. But I wouldn't do it unless the device was fully hackable. FOSS software, available hardware schematics, these should be bare minimum requirements today, alas they're not. At least with Android the software is available for hacking.
I like the idea of the laser projector, there are times you need to display something visual but interfacing with a phone for that requires a phone, which negates most of the hardware requirements for the device, and interfacing with existing wireless protocols and phone UX is infeasible. It's a good stopgap while we wait for real holographic techtechnology, but only works if it is not a primary interface. The primary interface has to be voice or there's no benefit to it at all.
The form factor is unattractive. First, there's the issue that voice interaction provides no secrecy in public, just as a holographic visual interface would not, then it clips to a shirt and looks like a shoplifting prevention clothing tag with a camera. If it cannot adapt to loose clothing and moving around unpredictably it doesn't make sense to attach it to clothing and needs to be attached to the body in some way.
Socially acceptable accessories are a problem. To be candid, people want to get laid, and walking around with a helmet on your head or a small computer where your pocket protector should be get in the way of this. A watch or glasses are fine, so long as they're not overly obvious in signaling that they're a nerd toy. The problem with a watch is that you can't do the laser display thing without using up two hands. The problem with glasses is that the technology to display high resolution overlays in your field of view doesn't exist yet. The problem with the laser display concept itself is that you need a hand to use it, the same hand you could use to hold a phone with a much better display. So it doesn't really offer an advantage. This form factor is basically a phone in your shirt pocket, camera facing out, with a worse display.
I like the idea, but all in all this does less than a phone running an LLM with a Bluetooth earpiece and mic. I don't think this kind of wearable technology is going to take off until you can get a full computer into glasses that don't look silly with a good resolution display in them that can overlay on your normal field of view. That is a long way off. Even just a personal area network that puts the processing power in a bracelet or candy bar in your pocket, that is, earpiece and display glasses as accessories to existing personal computing, are not coming very soon. It's going to be a while before such wearables are viable.