I mean these kinds of “AI companions” are grifts anyway. They won’t take off because they are a solution looking for a problem. They aren’t as affordable as the entry level HomePod/Amazon Pod/Google Home units, so they can’t be bought as a “why not, and it’s a speaker anyway” type thing. They don’t have any secondary functionality you don’t already have in your phone.
And if that’s not enough, you can bet your cute arse on that Apple and Google are both working on bringing LLM functions into their assistants, basically making these units obsolete.
The moment that these companies decide that they can’t afford to pay for servers and API subscriptions anymore, the service will die and you’ll end up with a colourful brick. Don’t buy these things, they’re unfinished and will die within a year or two.
The ultimate issue is exactly what you said; phones exist. I’m not carrying another voice assistant around when both Siri and Google Assistant can be installed on my phone.
Based on MKBHD’s review this whole product category definitely screams “solution in search of a problem”
Like, I can imagine a world where a smart watch replaces my phone for day to day stuff, but that’s because I’m in that weird space where I prefer a laptop for almost anything serious, but still appreciate the convenience and functionality of remaining connected wherever I am, even if I’m on the move.
But another device I need to keep in my pocket? What’s the point?
Rabbit has a SIM slot. I think the idea is that once its software gets better, it will be able to be a replacement for a phone for people who just want to quickly do simple things. Its battery seems to be pretty rubbish, though, and for now, the software is not nearly good enough.
But you can literally buy a cheap android phone for less than this device that does everything it does (and might do some day), maybe even better. Why buy a strange and unfamiliar form factor, when most people are comfortable with a smartphone already? They can just choose not to interact with anything other than the assistant if they really want to, and still be better off.
I agree, fairly gimmicky, but I do like the idea of being able to press a single button to ask a quick question. I like my meta glasses for the same reason, but they need some improvement, and quite frankly, I’d like them a whole lot more if they were from someone other than meta. Also, I like the smallest of it. If I could get away with carrying just a tiny box, sometimes I’d do that. The software on it needs to get much better, so hopefully, they stick with it.
On Pixel (but probably also other phones) you can press and hold the power button to summon the assistant. Put chatgpt or whatever as your assistant and you have a rabbit equivalent with one button summon.
Great point! Here are samsung instructions for this.
Download chatgpt from play store (ensure its by open ai and not a scam app). Set it up and make sure you have access to the voice feature
Download good lock from galaxy store (NOT play store)
In the good lock app, In the “life up” section, download the “RegiStar” module.
Open the RegiStar module and click the “side key press and hold action” setting. Turn it on
In the options underneath, choose “open app”. Then scroll to the chat gpt app in the list, and click the setting icon next to the name. Then click “voice”.
Now you should be able to long press the side button to directly access the chatgpt voice assistant.
The rabbit is also just an android apk. You could literally install the rabbit on a cheap phone if you’d like. It’s beyond useless.
What someone needs to do is put something similar into something all cutesy like a Furby, and sell it for kids. Just a $100 wifi only PG rated thing that can do some fun stuff. It wouldn’t change the world, but it could run a few years of actual profiting and not feel like a rip-off.
Good luck making an AI you are 100% sure is PG rated.
Btw someone already put chatgpt+whisper in a kid’s plushie/toy, saw it on an old WAN show. The lag is tremendous though
But it’s just an Android app in a dedicated device that reviews say has a shit interface and battery.
Run it on a cheap phone that does more for less.
The battery part is fixed now 😂 they were able to give that thing 5x battery lifetime trough a software update
Makes me wonder what they where doing in the background prior this update
Former crypto company… Power drain… I feel like there’s an answer here…
😂that would be hell of a scam
That’s amazing, I hadn’t heard about the battery fix!
Yeah, build this into a watch or Earbud that I already have on person for other reasons but gives me hands free access to a decent AI when I don’t have my phone on me, and I might have some interest.
What phone is that that supports both Siri and Google Assistant on the same device?
iPhones only, basically. Google Assistant is available through an app, but that’s still more convenient than buying a $200 device
Absolutely a grift.
The CEO is a fucking joke. This is their bio on linkedin.
Serial Entrepreneur, semi - Pro Lamborghini Super Trofeo racer, music producer, car and vintage synth collector.
The resume of someome who had never done an honest day’s work in their life.
Only the first item is related to business, and even that implies repeated failure.
Solutions looking for problems is a mainstay in multiple industries from material science to chemistry. It’s not necessarily a bad idea.
In the early days of laser development, it was seen as a solution seeking a problem. A few decades later, it actually turned out to be really handy, but it would have been tough to sell this idea to anyone before that. Imagine how hard it is to find funding for research that solves a problem that doesn’t exist.
In development and science, sure. But this is a finished product on the market.
The principle is the same. “Let’s hope someone finds this useful.” It’s always a crapshoot.
They’re a solution looking to solve a problem that already has a well established better solution. The modern smart phone and voice assistats have been around for 14+ years…
For all these Ai devices can currently accomplish, our budget $200 phones can do an unmeasurable amount more.
If anyrhing, they should be focusing on the voice assistant aspect - “Hey google, add nearest gas station to my trip” “Here’s a list of gas stations (I know you’re driving but please review this list and select one using the tiny select button)” {presses button} “Please enable location data analytics to continue”
In addition to being able to run the exact same thing on that phone you already have, too.
Their device does not have any specific hardware for their usage. Even if Google and Apple don’t bring any improvement to their own solution, soon enough someone is bound to just provide an “assistant AI app” with a subscription, proxying openai requests and using the touchscreen, camera, micro and speaker that are already there instead of making you buy a new set of those.
The “AI” in the R1 is utter shit. Wired eviscerated it in a review.
It is somewhat OK considering it’s a free app.
You could say the same about Siri, which is also utter shit.
And yet, for both you are supposed to pay for an overpriced device. You can at least pirate the R1 app.
I think there may be a market for an LMM that is executed locally and privately incorporates personal data.
Yes, there is. And yes, it would be huge. I know a lot of people that are staying away from all this as long as the privacy issues are not resolved (there are other issues, but at this point, the cat is out of the bag).
But running large models locally requires a ton of resource. It may become a reality in the future, but in the meantime allowing more, smaller provider to provide a service (and a self-hosted option, for corporation/enthusiasts) is way better in term of resources usage. And it’s already a thing; what needs work now is improving UI and integrations.
In fact, very far from the “impressive” world of generated text and pictures, using LLM and integrations (or whatever it is called) to create a sort of documentation index that you can query with natural language is a very interesting tool that can be useful for a lot of people, both individual and in corporate environment. And some projects are already looking that way.
I’m not holding my breath for portable, good, customized large models (if only for the economics of energy consumption) but moving away from “everything goes to a third party service provider” is a great goal.
All they had to do was swap NFT with AI and their deck was ready to go
Which is hilarious because they are actually marketing jokes where this is the punchline
From NFT to AI, no surprise there.
That was exactly what I was thinking when I read the article. I didn’t know that’s what they were doing before this, but after reading multiple reviews saying what a piece of shit the Rabbit is, I was not at all surprised they used to hawk NFTs.
It would make me laugh so hard if the thing subtly tried to sell you crypto in its answers
Unfortunately, that nightmare is absolutely on its way. The moment companies work out how to secure their initial prompts, they’ll start selling product placement. As the technology continues to become more accessible, it will be used for astroturfing and manipulating financial markets.
A decade from now, social media is just going to be an endless flood of secret AI sales reps trying to convince other secret AI sales reps to buy their shit products, vote for their shit candidates or follow their shit investment advice.
damn I forgot about NFTs. That shit was funny
You just don’t get it bro, owning jpegs is the future
You didn’t even own the jpeg. You owned a link to a jpeg which could be switched out with another jpeg at any time.
If anyone is interested in actually owning the jpeg
How do you define “own”.
You get the full rights to use them, and the artist abandons their copyright to it
OK. So own here means exclusively resell. Thanks.
I note that NFT is not mentioned once. Is that because this isn’t blockchain based?
No lol, you just buy the copyright to the image. There is nothing crypto here, just a way for artists to get money and people actually get something in return for their payment.
Scamming people that missed the Bitcoin boom
I referred to them as Pizza Without Shrooms
I call it the “My wife gets railed daily by other men. But I’m happy because at least I own the marriage certificate.” thing
Did they forget smartphones exist? Why would I want another device for something my smartphone could do?
Segmentation
There is definitely a case for having a separate device for something a smartphone can do, if it can do it better, e.g a camera.
This device doesn’t do it better in my opinion.
There is definitely a case for having a separate device for something a smartphone can do, if it can do it better, e.g a camera.
Frankly things have gone full circle and the list of “external devices that can do it better” seems to get larger and larger each release. Pretty much all phones excel at these days is scrolling through social media and keeping us entertained on the toilet.
Plenty of companies pivot when their initial business plan doesn’t work out or if the market changes.
For example, did you know that American Express used to be a shipping company like FedEx and UPS? Or Mattel used to sell picture frames before they started making toys? Or Nintendo started out as a playing card company and still sells them today?
Yeah but the people running this seem to only be interested in pivoting between whatever the current grift is. We should come up with a word for people who do that, maybe something like “grifters”.
That’s a good point. Cryptocurrency and NFTs are not good things to be involved in.
How are they still in business?
I’m guessing they won’t be for long.
It seems the way VC’s throw money at pure unadulterated hype, don’t count them out just yet. So long as you’re good at marketing, you don’t have to be good at development; you don’t have to have a good idea; you don’t have to have a product that does what you’ve promised, works or even exists… they’ll shower a literal pile of shit with money until it sparkles like a Faberge egg if you can only generate buzz.
Luck. The one that was formed by former English Nijisanji managers went immediately bankrupt, and also had dire consequences to Nijisanji itself (which also tried to step into NFTs at one point if it wasn’t for the talents) as those managers were now missing from the company.
Basically if you were lucky and able to sell your NFTs for a hyperinflated price to be used in money-laundering schemes while you also profiting off of them on every transaction. If not, then your life savings were wasted on some crappy commissions.
Pure hype.
Plus big tech companies are scared to lose out to each other, so they’ll buy into it even as a known risk.
It takes time for your bad consequences to catch up with you. Since the idea is clearly horseshit, I doubt the CEO put a large amount of his money on the line. It will take him some time to piss through the investor money and then you will see a sad “goodbye” message from Rabbit Inc. as they brick the devices on the way out. (since it does nothing without their server)
Why do people care so much that it’s an app? If it was not an app would everyone have been buying it in droves?
At least part of this is due to a direct quote from the CEO mentioning how they need a VERY bespoke Android version for it to run, which is clearly bullshit because you can run the APK on other devices other than the Rabbit R1 hardware.
Since Rabbit was at least partially funded by the “Cyber Manufacture Co” rug-pull and they suffered NO penalty the CEO has taken this as a sign the market will tolerate his scams. You should view the Rabbit R1 through the lens of it being a former “web3” company and I’m sure the shady legacy remains inside that company.
Since Rabbit sells at $199 and then NO monthly charge, there is basically no viable funding model for this company. Every single request you send the Rabbit costs them money. So, it’s only a matter of time before the R1 itself is “rugged”, whether that’s suddenly requiring a monthly fee OR just shutting down entirely.
My guess would be, like the Humane Pin, they wanted to do a monthly fee, but if they did the R1 would sell even worse (since it’s basically entirely broken out of the box). If these guys make it 3 years I’ll be surprised. And, since the R1 does nothing locally, it turns into a nice paperweight when these guys eventually pull THIS rug.
Then why not just make a new company?
Save a few thousands for incorporation fees also some bs experience that you can use to boast to vc investors
Why bother? They made a bunch of money with the rug pull and suffered no consequences. Scammers are usually lazy.
The enshittification of enshittification.
Yes, I know that is not the correct use of this word given the context, but I think it gets the point across regarding what has happened to tech overall.
Enshittification is used plenty often enough, we don’t need to be using it incorrectly imo.
Where does Teenage Engineering fit into this? Besides being overpriced toys?
“Adorable” is their word, not mine. I think it’s pretty damn ugly.
I think it’s cute, but haven’t heard a single good thing about it. I also thought the “cyber truck” was beautiful so obviously I have some wires crossed compared to most folks
It is cute but it doesn’t make sense for the world we’re in. I think it’d make a cool prop for a show/movie from a alternative timeline or something.
I love it. If it weren’t overpriced as hell I’d want to buy one to root and install my own apps. The AI portion of it is dumb.
The processor is rather bad. I think that any advantage of the form factor you see will be outweighed by the frustratingly sluggish experience. You’ll wan to turn it into a single-purpose device and not handle it often, defeating the purpose of its physical feel.
Anyway, you’ll see them all over Ebay when the service inevitably shuts down. If it had volume buttons and a headphone jack, there could be some audio-based use such as a podcast player.
Kind of bizarre that Teenage Engineering helped design a product that doesn’t have a headphone jack now that I think about it…
Why do people care so much that it’s an app? If it was not an app would everyone have been buying it in droves?
Because it means the $200 hardware is pointless.
Isn’t the point of the device that there’s no screen and you talk to it? You can’t clip your phone to your chest.
Not that I would buy the device, it seems like they are trying to sell a story or futurism vibe to replace the “classic smartphone experience”.
It has a screen. You’re thinking of the Humane Ai Pin, which projects a screen on your hand but is mostly meant to just be talked to.
I think you’re thinking of the humane AI pin.
It’s just a toy, a neat gadget, I also wouldn’t care if it was an app, it would be just another gpt frontend
And here I thought it was referencing my car.
