Earlier this year, Microsoft added a new key to Windows keyboards for the first time since 1994. Before the news dropped, your mind might’ve raced with the possibilities and potential usefulness of a new addition. However, the button ended up being a Copilot launcher button that doesn’t even work in an innovative way.
Logitech announced a new mouse last week. I was disappointed to learn that the most distinct feature of the Logitech Signature AI Edition M750 is a button located south of the scroll wheel. This button is preprogrammed to launch the ChatGPT prompt builder, which Logitech recently added to its peripherals configuration app Options+.
Similarly to Logitech, Nothing is trying to give its customers access to ChatGPT quickly. In this case, access occurs by pinching the device. This month, Nothing announced that it “integrated Nothing earbuds and Nothing OS with ChatGPT to offer users instant access to knowledge directly from the devices they use most, earbuds and smartphones.”
In the gaming world, for example, MSI announced this year a monitor with a built-in NPU and the ability to quickly show League of Legends players when an enemy from outside of their field of view is arriving.
Another example is AI Shark’s vague claims. This year, it announced technology that brands could license in order to make an “AI keyboard,” “AI mouse,” “AI game controller” or “AI headphones.” The products claim to use some unspecified AI tech to learn gaming patterns and adjust accordingly.
Despite my pessimism about the droves of AI marketing hype, if not AI washing, likely to barrage the next couple of years of tech announcements, I have hope that consumer interest and common sense will yield skepticism that stops some of the worst so-called AI gadgets from getting popular or misleading people.
Like when tech companies forced “Cloud” everything upon us in the early 2010’s, and then the digital home assistant craze that followed after.
These things are not meant for us. Sure some people will enjoy or benefit from them in some way, but their primary function is to appease shareholders and investors and drum up cash. It’s why seemingly every company is desperately looking for ways to shoehorn “AI” into their products even if it’s completely nonsensical.
I disagree. I believe that our interactions with AI represent a breakthrough in the level of data surveillance capitalism can obtain from us.
AI isn’t the product. The users are. AI just makes the data that users provide more valuable. Soon enough, every user will be discussing their most personal thoughts and feelings with big brother.
Ever play Deus Ex: Invisible War? Yeah, they did that in there. A ubiquitous series of holoprojectors allowing you to seemingly interact with a particular pop star, who is super friendly and easily form a relationship with, turns out to be a sophisticated ai surveillance network doing exactly what you said. It even screws you over if you reveal too much to it.
Yeah strongly agree on companies just using AI as a buzzword to make investors excited. Tech companies that aren’t throwing AI in things have a higher chance of their stock price stagnating
At the time the cloud stuff was first being talked about, I worked a a large tech company (one of the top 10 largest). I remember being told by managers and above how important it was and how we should start thinking about how to integrate it into every facet of our products and workplace. The CEO railed on this as well, tying KPIs to it at all levels of the business. This company makes all kinds products in the realm of hardware and software. Everyone went absolutely apeshit integrating everywhere, including A LOT of places it didn’t belong
“AI” motorcycles are apparently also somehow hot in trade shows. But the entire purpose of getting on a motorcycle is to get out and ride and enjoy the ride yourself.
The cloud buzzword was the dumbest thing ever. The cloud is an infrastructure technique for deploying server resources. It has zero end user impact. It made certain features easier to deploy and develop for software companies, but there is nothing fundamentally different in the experience the cloud provides vs a traditional server. Outside of the industry, the term means fucking nothing to users and the way it was used was just synonymous with the Internet in general. If your file is hosted on the cloud or a centralized server makes no difference to the end user and there would be no way to tell how it was hosted in a UI.
They forced cloud on us so they could do the same nickel-and-dime billing that webhosts used for cpu cycles/ram/storage…
…because it’s lucrative as hell when taken to a grand scale.
But there are sometimes side benefits for us.
I, for one, am over the moon levels of happy that I will never spend another weekend patching Exchange servers.
Can I get the list of things that are in my smartphone because we asked for them?
This article should have been titled, “Why the fuck does my mouse need an AI chat -prompt builder?”
Seriously. I want my mouse to do one job - move around the screen and let me click on stuff.
…and if I want “instant access to knowledge”, a Wikipedia bookmark will do the job.
But what if that bookmark had AI? 🤯
Yeah, and there’s nothing stopping people from mapping a button to that if they really want to. Most buttons I’ve been given that do some specific action are buttons I’ve grown to hate because they generally make it more time-consuming to accidentally press it.
Like the windows button, especially back in the day when alt+tabbing out of a game was risky (at the very least it would take a long time as windows paged everything in and out, but it wasn’t rare to also get disconnected from a game or for the game or system to crash entirely) or that fucking bixby button.
For a long time, the first thing I would do on a new computer was go into the registry and disable the windows key.
In the gaming world, for example, MSI announced this year a monitor with a built-in NPU and the ability to quickly show League of Legends players when an enemy from outside of their field of view is arriving.
…So it just lets them cheat? I remember when monitor overlay crosshairs were controversial, this is insane to me.
Yep, there are cheating monitors too and you will never know if other people have it:
Holy shit, Star Trek knew. They were trying to warm us.
To tech Companies and their product engineers: whatever you do, please please please let me rebind the special button to do literally anything other than whatever buzzword you’re forced to push.
You’ll benefit too, every year just slap a new label on the button depending on what’s the hot topic. Personal assistant? ChatGPT? Virtual Reality? Whatever gets your investors’ hearts racing you can rebrand that button to. Just let it be customizable, for the love of the silicon gods.
Product engineers can’t do shit about this. This is all direction from product and upper management because they always have to follow the trends and release something “new and improved”.
Darn we missed the blockchain train. I want a button that mines a bitcoin when I press it.
For some reason this made me imagine a game that is a cross between minecraft and super mario, where whenever you mine or hit a certain kind of block, a little coin pops up and you get a bitcoin from it. Real bitcoin mining!
Keylogger=bad unless it came decipher what you’re doing so Costco can order more diapers or more vegan snacks.
They’re trying to shove it down our throats to normalize the idea of automating creativity.
Can we demand a refund if the ai doesn’t do what we want?
No pay more to try again silly
Can’t wait until the AI enhanced sex toys.
Lol why wait, Lovense is already touting AI driven patterns.
Wait, so we should poison AI data to force AI sex toys to only allow edging?
Meta put AI search into instgram search. And you can’t do any search without agreeing to use AI search. No option to opt out
Been going on for awhile with microchips and network access and now this as the latest. My fridge just needs to keep things cold. clock on a microwave? fine. it does not need to know the exact date. etc, etc.
its like no one’s seen predictive text or denoising before.
Who buys a new peripherals? You can get 100% functional peripherals for a couple of bucks from any thrift store.
Who? I dunno, about 98% of users or so?
Why?
I’m guessing to get a new product, guaranteed to work, be compatible with other current equipment, software etc. Also easy to just order online without having to go find a unit in acceptable condition for a good price.
the people supplying the thrift stores with used peripherals
This article is a bit late?
