Archive: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/p1mI7
When Amazon.com Inc. executives took the stage last month in New York to announce an artificially intelligent Alexa, there was a conspicuous absence: no flashy new gadget to accompany the souped-up voice assistant.
Amazon isn’t unusual in this regard. After a years-long explosion of high-end laptops, foldable smart phones and voice-activated everything, big tech companies have entered the artificial intelligence age with little new hardware.
If the gadget development scene isn’t entirely dead, “it’s napping,” said Liam Pingree, an engineer with a doctorate in materials science who led teams at Amazon, Microsoft Corp. and Boeing Co.
Pingree and other hardware veterans decry a lack of risk-taking in hardware as tech companies pour billions of dollars into massive bets on artificial intelligence software. The industry is banking on a future where AI tools create novel sources of revenue, and, if history is any guide, new products can fuel customer adoption. Smartphones created an app ecosystem, and the personal computer helped popularize the internet.
The problem is that the AI branded software doesn’t run easily on old devices, unless you just stream it from one of their server farms. But they’re losing money every time they run one of these services for you, and the vast majority of people aren’t going to pay them a subscription for that.
They’re trying to justify selling new devices with software now, not giving out software that can run on old devices. You gotta replace your 2017 laptop to run windows 11. Gotta get a new computer with an NPU to run AI models locally. But it’s happening again, users are not embracing these new AI features, let alone buying new devices just so they can use them.
Much like wearables and VR headsets, the interest for these things is largely limited to enthusiasts spaces and isn’t translating to mass adoption. The average person doesn’t care about having their computer writing their email in to a limerick, they just want their email client to not freeze up and crash because they got an email with a weirdly formatted picture.
Yea, I agree 100%. My comment was definitely ambiguous, but I’m not expecting my old phone to get updated with AI tools (though it actually was), more just that I don’t want an AI specific gadget and I don’t think anyone but an enthusiast would. Definitely see these as the new VR, as you mentioned. It seems the article was lamenting product development as though it in itself is an end goal. UX and efficiency should be the end goal. Not just making things for the sake of saying you made something. I obviously support people expressing themselves and experimenting, but the framing in the article is so strange and reads like they’re lamenting the fact that capitalism has reached its latter stages more than anything else.