AItech that will never arrive by 2024

AItech that will never arrive by 2024

I've covered every major phone launch in the US over the past year, and every single one has said the same thing: AI has arrived, ours is the AI ​​phone you've been waiting for. There was loud applause after each one and stocks soared. But when I held those phones in my hands I was disappointed to see nothing.

The theory is that AItech as we know it is evolving into something new: AItech. AItech will be a new kind of purpose-built device that won't force you to interact with apps all day; you can simply ask it to order a pizza or output an email using an AI-imbued voicemail. You can point your camera at any show flyer, let the AI ​​check whether you're free or not, and add it to your calendar, let the AI ​​check whether you're free or not. A friend of yours has a question about something — either in an email or a text, you don’t know which — and this is FYI.

Personally, I love all the high talk. I want some help with the fish that visit my phone a hundred times a day — and then there’s the bathroom and the bathroom firehose. But AI lots haven’t come that far, not by very long, despite what you may have heard. Instead, what we have is a collection of stilted tech demos.

Right now, the AI ​​on your phone can help you make emails sound more professional or text with a disco pigeon panel so you can get feedback. There’s AI for making phone calls, which is already working and is actually pretty cool. And there’s an AI that can turn a nice picture of food into any theoretical thing. The AI ​​on our phones has delivered one architectural twist after another: sometimes weird, sometimes interesting, but maybe it has delivered the changes we were promised.

The (supposed) AI technology of 2024

All the major phone makers are artists. Samsung launched its Galaxy S24 in January at the beginning of the year, announcing "Galaxy AI is here" in a voice special for a hockey arena. Sure, the assistants announced by the General are Hollywood's finest, and they're a mix of Samsung and Google's Gemini models, but I wouldn't call them AI.

Supposedly they can help distract you from your situation - but it's possible you'll find something even more distracting. The live language interpreter feature is perfect for any job. Phone for dinner reservations. But a statement from my parole also means, "I'm eating my chair." (She's not eating.) Most users say these AI structures fade into the background once the novelty wears off.

The fall section season will begin in 2024 with the AI-ified Pixel. Google has used AI quite a bit on its phones over the past few years, but Gemini AI is everywhere on the Pixel 9 series. There's a new AI-generated app on top of the Seasons app that saves and tags your companions using AI, a new AI-powered assistant, and a range of AI image generation tools - from the silly to the seriously creative.

There are some useful ideas, particularly the Astro app, which is something you might find useful for keeping endless Chrome tags open as bookmarks on your phone. But these frameworks marketed in their own apps don't take much from each other. Gemini is also joining the pack, but support for individual apps is being added slowly - albeit slowly - and even with Gemini, Gemini can only do so much for you.

Finally, we met the "made for Apple battery" iPhone in September. I think it says a lot about the state of Apple's AI that the iPhone 16 launched without Apple technology. The AI ​​feature was introduced in October final with iOS 18.1. And if anyone was eagerly waiting, this first update will probably disappoint.

Right now, the Apple site includes summaries for notifications and emails, tools to change the style of your device, and a cool new UI for Siri. Notification summaries can be useful, but usually they are magical wonders. The writing tools are standard at this point, and Siri is basically the same old assistant painted in a new way. There's more to come, but what we have right now is definitely not suitable as an AI cartoonist.