With the growth of generative artificial intelligence (AI), hardware innovation is becoming a new business opportunity. On November 10, the American technology company Humane released its first AI hardware product, AI PIN, which can be pinned to clothes like a pin, and is like a new product the size of an egg, which can realize functions such as taking pictures, typing, and real-time translation, and is regarded as a challenger to smartphones. AI is accelerating hardware innovation, and a large number of new AI hardware smart products may be born in the future.
From the perspective of technological innovation, this is an innovative exploration that pushes AI from "concept" to "landing". The AI PIN is not only equipped with sensors, but also equipped with a large AI model developed based on GPT-4, and also innovates the interaction method. Instead of setting up a screen like a mobile phone, it uses laser projection to project the display interface onto the palm of your hand, which can be controlled with taps, gestures, and voice commands. You can search for queries with your fingers, receive messages with your palms open, and automatically estimate the nutrient content ...... of a handful of almonds in your palmThe new interactive mode breaks through the existing traditional mode represented by the touch screen.
Humane officially claims that the purpose of AI PIN is to replace mobile phones, but with the rapid development of AI hardware, will it really replace mobile phones?It's hard to look at it at the moment. Although it is positioned as an "AI personal assistant", its functions are still relatively basic, and the functions shown by AI PIN at the press conference include voice calls, real-time translation, identifying food and providing nutritional information, recommending restaurants and**, etc., many of which can be realized by mobile phones, AI PIN is not a strong alternative, and there is still a long way to go to innovate and unlock more diverse AI functions in the future.
However, although AI hardware will not necessarily subvert mobile phones at present, it reflects that the basic technical conditions for the development and design of a new generation of smart hardware products have gradually matured, and the development and use of AI functional services is becoming a trend. For example, the development of 5G can support more efficient mobile network operations and reduce data transmission costs, making it possible to promote the widespread application of more complex interaction patternsThe rapid upgrade and iteration of AI chips improves the ability to handle intensive generative AI workloads, which can effectively solve the problem of "computing power shortage".
The "new entrance" to AI is spreading from mainstream PCs and mobile phones to a wider range of hardware devices, and AI that was originally limited to science fiction works is moving towards the application layer in various ways. Previously, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, launched the first batch of glasses with built-in AI at the 2023 developer conference, and proposed a combination of "MR+AI + smart glasses" or a future trend. Intel recently announced the launch of the industry's first AI PC acceleration program, which aims to bring AI performance to more than 100 million PC devices by 2025. At the same time, smartphones are also accelerating AI, and Apple is increasing its research and development of generative AI, and is committed to bringing generative AI technology to mobile devices.
With smart terminals to cut into user scenarios, AI-driven hardware innovation is accelerating. We expect that in the future, AI hardware can truly become an "AI assistant" that is deeply embedded in AI functions, accurately understands the personalized needs of users, and has the ability to learn Xi itself.
*:Economy**.