For those who read TechTonic Shifts, you know that I am a great fan of both Star Trek and Gadgets (here, here and here). This time is no different because I have come across the most brilliant invention based on the Star Trek “communicator”: The AI Pin!

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According to their website (obviously generated by ChatGPT):

Humane’s Ai Pin “marks a new beginning for personal consumer technology, offering users the ability to take AI with them everywhere in an entirely new, conversational and screenless form factor.”

In plain English, it is a wearable with an artificial intelligence-powered assistant that does everything your phone can, but without a screen. It is remarkably similar, in both function and design, to the communicator pin or “combadge” that the likes of Kirk, Spock, and later Picard wore.

I’m far from the first person to compare this futuristic pager to Star Trek’s standard combadge. Starfleet personnel are outfitted in uniforms complete with a pin of Starfleet’s iconic crest. This pin is the communicator, which can be activated with a quick touch. From there, users execute voice commands like, “Computer, locate Commander LaForge.” or “Computer, run whole crew diagnostic scan.”

Humane’s Ai Pin not only takes inspiration from Star Trek’s communicator’s wearability, but also from the 1960’s vision of human-computer interaction. Voice commands are king, and there are no apps to download and manage, just the user and the omnipotent, all-powerful computer.

This was the vision of the future Rodenberry envisioned decades ago. In his endorsement of Humane’s Ai Pin, Bill Gates seems to concur. He has foretold the death of apps and the rise of “agents.”

What is the Ai Pin?

The revelation of the Ai Pin didn’t go quite to plan. In the original announcement video released by Humane, start-up co-founders Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno awkwardly demonstrated the capabilities of the device… and didn’t explain what it was until about three minutes in. Furthermore, this first video had to be edited and re-uploaded because the Ai Pin’s AI was incorrect about a couple Google-able facts, like the location of this year’s solar eclipse and the protein content of a handful of almonds.

Basically, the 700 USD costing Ai Pin (sic!) is meant to act as a personal assistant clipped to your lapel. Communicating only through small LED lights and voice commands, the Ai Pin can take photos, send messages, answer questions about physical objects like almonds or dragon fruit, and act as a translator. It also has a blue laser display that projects information like text messages and allows for the touch control of a music player.

You may be thinking: my smartphone can do all of this, just with the addition of a screen. So why is it that Bill Gates of all people is so excited about this gadget?

Humane buried the lead. The part of the Ai Pin that is pulled straight from Star Trek is not the wearability or voice-user interface of the device… but the “agent” inside.

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What is an AI agent?

According to the Ai Pin’s press release, the powerhouse behind the Pin’s success is an internal AI agent that has evolved beyond the need for apps. “An entirely new AI software framework, the AI Bus, brings Ai Pin to life and removes the need to download, manage, or launch apps. Instead, it quickly understands what you need, connecting you to the right AI experience or service instantly.”

One of the main factors holding us back from attaining 24th century technology is the fact that voice assistants of today cannot surmount the barrier of apps. For example, I can’t ask Siri to review the last hour of footage from my Ring doorbell. Siri doesn’t have access to that, and neither does Alexa. Alexa similarly can’t check if my order from Etsy has arrived. My Google Assistant can’t open my library app to check on my due dates.

Our voice assistants are limited by access to apps. Without robust interconnectivity between each and every app, device, and assistant we are stuck in the 21st century.

AI agents present the opportunity to leap into the future, wherein we really can make commands like Captain Picard, “Computer, order some of this excellent earl gray tea.”

Back in November, Bill Gates wrote in his blog about the death of apps and the rise of agents, saying that agents will upend the whole of computing as we know it. The future he describes, made possible through agents, sounds remarkably like Star Trek.

“You won’t have to use different apps for different tasks. You’ll simply tell your device, in everyday language, what you want to do. And depending on how much information you choose to share with it, the software will be able to respond personally because it will have a rich understanding of your life.” — Bill Gates

In one example, he describes circumventing one of the most frustrating user experiences of today — trying to find the right platform that hosts the media you want to watch. If you want to watch Star Wars, he writes, “it will know whether you’re subscribed to the right streaming service, and if you aren’t, it will offer to sign you up.”

Much easier than scrolling through three different interfaces until giving up and Googling it.

The way that Gates describes agents brings to mind the abilities of Star Trek’s omnipresent LCARS computer system. Crew members could ask for any number of things and quickly have their needs met. No fiddling with apps or physical interfaces required.

Why we’re (still) not living in the future

Connectivity

There are a few reasons why our 21st century tech does not resemble the tech Gene Roddenberry imagined in the 1960’s. Roddenberry could not have foreseen the rise of apps, wherein each company has its own tech sequestered away behind downloads and EULAs. Roddenberry was famously socialist with his vision of the future; in Star Trek, resources are shared to the extent that homelessness is a thing of the barbaric past.

AI agents that cooperate with other AI, as described by Gates, would bring us closer to the tech of Star Trek’s 24th century, but apps still reign supreme as of the time of this writing. Humane’s Ai Pin is one of the first examples of a device that, with the help of an internal agent, executes various functions (except for music streaming, which uses Tidal) without apps.

Trust

In the Ai Pin announcement video, Imran Chaudhri holds up a book and asks, “How much is this online?” The Pin tells him $28. “Great,” he says. “Buy it.”

Let’s pump the breaks right there.

What site online is the agent buying the book from? Which sites were consulted in determining that the book was $28? Was this the lowest price, or the most common? Is the book secondhand or new? How does the Pin have access to my money? What payment method is being used? Did the AI even identify the correct book?

As it stands now, we use screens to confirm all this information. I put very little faith in the accuracy of the information given to me by voice assistants. Typically, I will confirm important information–like purchasing details–on a screen before giving the go-ahead. According to a 2018 survey of 1,000 Americans, PwC found that 76% of respondents would rather shop online the “traditional way” rather than using a voice assistant. A lack of trust in the voice assistant was frequently cited, with one participant saying, “The assistant can’t answer my questions half the time but I’m supposed to trust it to help me with something involving money?”

The study indicated that small purchases, like foodstuffs, were the most often trusted with voice interfaces while bigger purchases (a $28 book, perhaps) were made through screen interfaces.

We do not trust the capabilities of voice user interfaces to be “smart” enough to be fully trusted to execute our commands without further monitoring via screens.

Privacy

Chaudhri has emphasized the lack of “wake words” as one way that the Ai Pin takes privacy into consideration. The device is not always listening, and when activated, indicates its use through different colored LEDs. This way, if the device’s camera is recording, other people will be aware. One of the reasons Google Glass users were called “Glassholes” was the lack of transparency when it came to indicating whether or not the device was recording.

Many of us have resigned ourselves to a world where cameras are everywhere–but we are not yet comfortable with the idea of speaking aloud to our phones. In a busy coffee shop, our voice assistants may misunderstand us over the noise of the crowd, or we might not want to say something like, “Order laxatives,” in public.

Much of the things we do on our phones are protected by the relative privacy of our screens. Texting, unlike phone calls, cannot be overheard. Typing “symptoms of constipation” into Google is infinitely more private than asking your voice assistant what is wrong with you. Even if what I’m asking about isn’t embarrassing or private, we are infinitely more accustomed to doing so via screen interfaces rather than voice interfaces.

TL;DR — The cool part is the agent, not the device

What Humane seems to be missing in its marketing material is emphasizing the revolutionary idea of agents over apps. This step toward 24th century technology as seen on Star Trek is why Bill Gates is excited about the Ai Pin. He sees the next big leap forward as artificial intelligence that speaks with other artificial intelligences in order to make things easier on users. Rather than being limited to accessing a few apps, agents will be able to access just about anything, the way that humans can.

“Having [an agent] will be like having a person dedicated to helping you with various tasks and doing them independently if you want. If you have an idea for a business, an agent will help you write up a business plan, create a presentation for it, and even generate images of what your product might look like.” — Bill Gates

Humane’s Ai Pin is powered by an agent, but as a society, we’re not ready to go completely screenless and only use voice user interfaces for reasons involving trust, privacy, and because the apps we use every day are not yet accessible to these AI agents. Even Gates acknowledges that AI is not yet robust enough for the interactions we see between the Enterprise crew and the Computer. Current AI is prone to inaccuracies and hallucinations, as we saw in the original, lampooned version of the Ai Pin announcement video.

Maybe one day we’ll want to replace our smartphones with smart pins, but for now, the technology is both ahead of the times and not yet developed enough.

Well, that’s a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I’ll have a fresh episode of TechTonic Shifts for you. If you enjoy my writing and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee ♨️

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Signing off – Marco

What went wrong with Star Trek’s “communicator”, a.k.a. the AI Pin.

Before we start!

What is the Ai Pin?

What is an AI agent?