(Credit: Humane)
The startup behind a Star Trek-like communicator badge has quietly fixed a demo video that showed the product making two mistakes in retrieving information for the user.
Last week, Humane introduced its “Ai Pin,” a product that tries to replace the smartphone with an AI-powered badge. There's no screen; instead, it acts more like a portable voice assistant, but with the smarts of ChatGPT.
The company’s demo video shows how the Ai Pin can be used to make phone calls, conduct real-time language translation, and play music. But the product isn’t perfect. The same demo also shows the Ai Pin supplying two incorrect answers, as Mashable points out.
In the first mistake, the Ai Pin is asked when the next solar eclipse will occur, and the best place to see it. The device responds by saying it'll take place on April 8, 2024, which is correct. But it messes up when it says the best places to view the eclipse will be in Australia and East Timor. Instead, NASA says the eclipse can only be seen in Central and North America.
In the second mistake, the Ai Pin is asked how much protein is in a handful of almonds. The device is shown about 12 almonds, which should only offer 3 grams of protein. But instead the Ai Pin says, “these almonds have 15 grams of protein,” or what half a cup of almonds offer.
The mistakes are a bit embarrassing for a startup trying to sell its first product. However, Humane blames the errors on “using pre-release software” to produce the demo.
“The first is that there was a bug that incorrectly reported a viewing location of a previous eclipse (rather than the upcoming one),” explains Humane’s head of new media Sam Sheffer in a post on the company’s Discord channel. “The second is that we stated the amount of protein for a half cup of almonds rather than the number in Imran’s hand. The former is the correct and current behaviour and this too will improve over time.”
Sheffer adds that the company plans on correcting the original demo video. The new clip is now on Humane's official website. As Mashable reports, the footage is the same, but the Ai Pin’s answer has been edited to say the next solar eclipse can be best viewed in Nazas, Mexico, which is correct.
Meanwhile, on the almond question, the Ai Pin merely states “a half of cup of almonds has 15 grams of protein.” This is technically true. But the device isn’t shown half a cup of almonds in the demo, only about 12 raw almonds, or about one-eighth of a cup. So the Ai Pin still isn't exactly supplying the best answer.
The incident underscores the potential drawback with relying on AI assistants. Because they don’t cite sources, they can sometimes misinform the user. Even so, Humane is promising to stamp out the errors as soon as it finds them.
“Our Ai architecture is continually evolving, and we will be pushing over-the-air updates regularly to improve customer experience as part of your subscription,” Sheffer says.
Humane has corrected the video right as it prepares to start sales for the Ai Pin tomorrow, Nov. 16. It costs $699, plus $24 per month to receive cellular connectivity and full access to its suite of AI features.