The First Major AI Consumer Hardware Launch is a Dumpster Fire

The first reviews are now out for the $699 Humane AI Pin, and the consensus isn’t great, at least if your company’s stated mission includes language like “we all deserve more from technology.”

In case you haven’t heard about the device, it initially made waves as a possible future replacement for smartphones thanks to a TED talk presentation from the company’s co-founder, Imran Chaudhri, delivered almost a year ago.

The title of the talk, “The Disappearing Computer – and a World Where You Can Take AI Everywhere” and its compelling demonstrations sent early intrigue around the product into hyperdrive. 

The tiny piece of hardware, which I like to describe as a smart brooch™, promised a variety of potentially useful capabilities. Like Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant, you could ask the pin for answers to general questions, get calendar updates, and receive and respond to text messages. More impressively, you could use the device’s onboard camera to scan objects in front of you to provide helpful information. In his demo, Chaudhri asked the pin to scan a piece of food held in his hand to determine whether eating it might be unhealthy. 

It was pitched as a device finally capable of breaking our smartphone addiction. It just also happened to include a camera, rechargable battery, microphones and a cellular data plan and phone number for making calls. 

More accurately, it promised to end the game of the app Whac-A-Mole we all currently play by pushing our primary interaction with technology away from screens, freeing us again to fully take in the life happening right in front of us.

The entire elevator pitch might as well have been cocaine to some venture capital and technological evangelists online. “It uses AI!” “It’s a new hardware form factor!” “Former Apple alums start the company!” “Did we mention AI!” “AI mutha fucker!!!!!!!!!!!“

After that initial excitement, though, leaks began springing in the brand’s hype fuel tanks.

Humane

The company conducted a more traditional unveiling presentation in November, which many immediately ribbed for its odd, sad tone. Word also circulated that several prominent tech media outlets, including The Verge, weren’t invited to the presentation, suggesting Humane wasn’t prepared to face intense journalistic scrutiny. 

Then there was the matter of the pin doing a very typical AI, thing in the middle of the presentation – i.e., bullshitting with extreme confidence. The company also laid off 4% of its staff in January. 

It’s been a brutal six-month stretch for the fledgling brand, and things don’t appear to be turning around any time soon based on the slew of initial reviews on the Humane AI pin. Just look at these headlines.

From Engadget: “The Humane AI Pin is the solution to none of technology’s problems.”

From The Verge: “Humane AI Pin review: not even close.”

From The Washington Post: “Humane A.I. Pin review: A promising mess you don’t need yet.”

From Wired: “Humane Ai Pin Review: Too Clunky, Too Limited.”

Woof. 

Then there’s this. The CEO of ChatGPT, Sam Altman, who is an investor in Humane, has made news headlines about his attempts to raise $1 billion alongside Jony Ive – the legendary hardware designer of iEverything fame – to build an “artificial intelligence-powered personal device.”

It seems like the investor version of the dreaded vote of confidence college athletic directors give publicly about a coach’s future with a program. 

If I can briefly put the schadenfreude aside, I’m disappointed that Humane’s first attempt has gone so sideways. I’m not an AI cheerleader by any stretch. I work in an industry the technology seems gung-ho on subsuming first. 

But I have, like many other tech fans, absolutely grown frustrated with the lack of innovation in mobile computing. And until a competitor arrives with an appealing enough product to challenge their dominance, the existing powers have few incentives to change. 

I also support at least the part of Humane’s mission statement about building tech that “feels familiar, natural and human.” Like I’m sure many of you, I constantly see competent people struggle to use devices that the tech industry champions as standard bearers for intuitive technology. 

This isn’t some case of your grandparents unconsciously trolling an Apple Genius bar employee. If tech experts can’t manage to reliably navigate through a menu, what possible hope do the rest of us have?

Technology is life-changing only when it’s easily applied to the challenges we all face. And it’s in this real-life use and application layer that most consumer devices desperately need to improve. 

Many early technologies and first attempts fail. Humane’s domed-shaped hype curve isn’t unprecedented by any means. And voice-based interactions with tech still seem to be an Achilles heel for even the tech giants, *cough* Siri. 

What is striking about this particular tech tale is how unready the device is for prime time. 

Many reviewers shared that the pin got noticeably warm or hot after wearing it. So, it’s an issue Humane would have known about through its testing. Given they designed the device primarily as a wearable you stick on your chest, you’d think uncomfortable heating results would have triggered “don’t ship this” flags internally. Maybe Humane expects the average consumer to use the pins less than reviewers prodding for the device’s limits. 

Then, there are the basic gestures the device requires users to master to navigate. 

The early feedback is that these maneuvers also appear to be very difficult to master and replicate consistently. 

This isn’t some case of your grandparents unconsciously trolling an Apple Genius bar employee. If tech experts can’t manage to reliably navigate through a menu, what possible hope do the rest of us have?

The Humane AI pins launch seems to have suffered from one obvious and all too common mistake that plagues companies, societies, and all of us individuals – failing to get, or even worse, listen to, outside perspective. 

The company’s media engagement team seems to have handled the initial launch review phase poorly as well.

Reviewers found that several pin features weren’t available or shipped obviously broken. Early bugs are common for a cutting-edge technology release. What’s strange is that the reviewers weren’t pre-briefed by Humane about capabilities that still need more time in the oven, which is a widespread practice in tech marketing relations. Maybe Humane did provide a heads-up, and reviewers simply collectively forgot about it. 

However, to those of us on the sidelines, it looks as if Humane just hoped some of the AI pin’s current rough edges would go unnoticed. 

There’s another argument to be made that the Humane AI pin is the latest in an increasingly more frequent line of beta products from Silicon Valley in search of an initial wave of paying genuine pigs to learn from. 

At the highest-level, the Humane AI pins launch seems to have suffered from one obvious and all too common mistake that plagues companies, societies, and all of us individuals – failing to get, or even worse, listen to, outside perspective. 

I’d be shocked if the brand didn’t gather testing data from third-party product testers, making this outcome feel more infuriating and cliche. 

After all the rationalizing is over, all that’s left to explain the outcome is unrestrained hubris, which the AI industry has already given the world enough of. 

Future reporting may reveal if the Humane AI pin was just another example of the echo chamber at work. It could reveal some other more explainable issue – like having to appease irrational investor timelines – for why the company launched a product that was so clearly unfinished. 

The one thing we know for certain now is that Humane’s set a new precedent. Convincing a naive world that AI-centric consumer hardware will be great was a tough enough sell. After Humane’s failed launch, even better executed ideas in the future will all face a harder road ahead.