Seven. Hundred. Dollars. After a year of asking questions about this much-hyped AI wearable, the Humane AI Pin is here, and, well, we still have lots of questions. We’re also still trying to figure out how it all works — and where it goes from here.
The good, the bad, and the Humane Pin
On The Vergecast: the state and future of AI gadgets, Taylor Swift’s TikTok return, and party speakers everywhere.
On The Vergecast: the state and future of AI gadgets, Taylor Swift’s TikTok return, and party speakers everywhere.
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge
is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.
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On this episode of The Vergecast, we dive deep into our review of the AI Pin and try to figure out what went wrong with this device and whether there’s a real future for it or any other AI-powered gadget. The trouble, we discover, is that these devices are stacking new technology on top of new technology, and until it all works perfectly, none of it will work very well. Also, did we mention the AI Pin is seven hundred dollars?
After that, we talk about the growing rift between OpenAI and the rest of the internet after some very good reporting showed how many millions of YouTube videos the company transcribed and used to train its models. We also talk about how Taylor Swift’s music came back to TikTok and whether there might be more to come.
Finally, we get a remarkably on-brand set of news in the lightning round, including E Ink screens, content regulation, and photo sharing. Sony also made a new party speaker, so of course, we spend an unreasonably long time on the party speaker. You have to look at those photos.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are a few links to get you started, beginning with Humane:
On AI:
- OpenAI transcribed over a million hours of YouTube videos to train GPT-4
- From The New York Times: How Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for A.I.
- From The Wall Street Journal: For Data-Guzzling AI Companies, the Internet Is Too Small
On Taylor Swift:
And in the lightning round:
- Alex Cranz’s pick: Kobo announces its first color e-readers
- Alex’s other pick: The MPA has big plans to crack down on movie piracy again
- David Pierce’s pick: Meta says it’s fixing ‘HD’ photo sharing in Facebook Messenger
- From Platformer: Marissa Mayer’s eternal Sunshine
- Nilay Patel’s pick: Sony’s new headphones and speakers are all about skull-rattling bass
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