Ai Pin - From thought to action

Ai Pin: Speed, not time

Yes, everything this Ai Pin does, can be done via a phone already. But take a second and go to your screen time page. Look at your 'phone pickup' count. Mine is 130 pickups a day on average. And most of these pickups are a series of 'hand in pocket → take phone out → unlock → swipe up → find → do'. The Ai Pin helps you get to the "do" faster.

Our phone anyway feel like an extended organ. Your brain asks and your hands, very instinctively, take out your phone and execute the ask. (In case of social media addiction, it even bypasses your conscience sometimes.) The Ai Pin short circuits the loop and satisfies your brain faster.

In my experience, once you're used to a faster pathway between thought and execution, it's very hard to go back. I'll give examples of two simple experiences where thought to execution happens faster than phones:

1. Wearing an analog watch. The instant connection between "what time is it?" to "it is 3pm" is surprisingly addictive. You can check time on your phone, but that and every other way to check time will feels slower once you get to wearing watches.
2. Try out Snapchat Spectacles (the sunglasses that have a camera). I can press a button on my sunglasses and it takes a quality photo of whatever I am looking at. Before I can even complete the thought of "I should take a pho..", my hand is already on the shutter button. Thought to execution, faster than your phone.

These are special devices for very specific asks of the mind. This is where the Ai Pin comes in. It's a device that can eventaully take over all the asks that your currently make to your phone. Any time your brain has a request, the Ai Pin can execute it faster than anything else. Once you're used to a faster pathway between thought and execution, it's very hard to go back.

An obvious provocation comes here. The reason Ai Pin is faster is because (a) it's accesible -- right there on your chest and (b) it's build on Open AI's model. Theoretically, an Apple Watch with a Siri-GPT can do the same. But look back at the launch video of the Ai Pin. You will notice the number of things they have added just to ensure that it becomes a device that leaves you with little to no reason to carry your phone.

• A required subscription of a new cell phone number
• Practically infinite battery
• No cap on data and Ai queries
• Makeshift screen (projector) for asks that are better served visually
• A camera (a big reason why Apple Watch can't be an independent device for so many)

They seem hell bent on making you ditch your phone. I kind of agree. The progress towards a new personal computing paradigm can only happen if take out the existing paradigm completely. Paradigm shifts aren't iterative.

It's not a miracle. It still lacks the human asks to be entertained (Reels, Games). It lacks the facility to make the asks privately (without saying out the ask loud).

But if computers were bicycle for your mind, then phones were perhaps... skateboards? Portable and effortless. But these new devices are trying to be cars for your mind. Speed. Thought to action, with minimial BS in between. Perhaps there are step functions ahead of us. Neuralink and AR glasses for example. All I know is that I am bullish on how AI is enabling us to get things done faster. And perhaps the touch screen dislays are not the right form factor to make the best of this speed.