Design AI
Today, Humane officially released the Ai Pin / AI smart brooch, which mentally realizes the communication brooch in Star Trek / Star Trek, which can be regarded as another Star Trek technology 😂 that has become a reality after the triple recorder and tablet
I edited a part related to human-computer interaction from the video released by Humane, and said a few words about this cross-era innovative design from the perspective of UX design, especially interaction design:
1. Natural language interaction
This is the most competitive part of the entire product, and it’s no wonder that Microsoft, OpanAI’s Sam Altman has invested in Humane
The AI in the video answered incorrectly, and the next total solar eclipse should be on January 8, 2024 instead of April 8, which also represents the inherent obstacles of LLM AIs such as ChatGPT at the product design level:
Neither the user nor the AI can tell the accuracy of the output
2. Voice interaction
Voice, natural language, and AI are the best natural combinations, but when it comes to wearing wearable devices in public and social situations, the feeling of voice interaction is not so natural
- What’s more rude than talking to someone while wearing AirPods? Use speakers to play sound
- What’s more awkward than talking into the air with AirPods? Tilt your head and speak to your chest
- What’s more embarrassing than talking to your chest? Speaking to the ladies/men’s chests in front of you… What if there are 5 people standing opposite each other, and everyone is wearing a Humane AI Pin (Note 1)
The Humane Ai Pin is interesting in the way it calls out the AI, and it is deliberately designed to be very conservative, requiring users to press the brooch with their fingers. This avoids the embarrassment of Siri listening to your call quietly, and also avoids the drama experience of “Xiao Ai” always being woken up inexplicably
3. Laser projection UI
Technically, this is amazing to be able to integrate a laser projector with a lot of brightness in such a thin device
However, judging from the demo video, because the palm is uneven, the palm will shake naturally, the palm angle and eye viewing angle will not be ideal, the display effect of laser projection is average, so it can only display a small amount of information in a very simple way in the UI like a traditional HUD
To be honest, I don’t like the interactive action of raising my palm and looking down at my palm
4. Gesture interaction
Haha don’t think much about this, I never remember gestures, I can’t even remember a few shortcuts in Photoshop for more than 20 years
Some people also think that the action of bending and pinching the fingers is very awkward, and my fingers are more flexible, and there is no obstacle in this regard
From Humane’s demo video, it is not clear how many daily operations of AI Pin rely on gestures, and it is unclear whether there are other alternatives to solve inconvenient gesture operation scenarios (such as wearing thick gloves in winter). Fortunately, today’s visual recognition is already very powerful, and gesture operation will definitely become the new normal of human-computer interaction
Humane’s vision is to design a new operating system that does not rely on mobile phone screens, so in the future, Humane AI Pin will use gestures to interact at both the operating system and the APP level – I have no problem with OS-level gestures, but I definitely don’t believe in the gestures of those mindless Android programmers
Okay, the task of memorizing various gestures is left to the next generation of humans who are born to interact with gestures every day
5. Privacy and privacy
The Humane Ai Pin clearly remembers the tragedy of Google Glass’s early years, showing the working status with a clear LED light to remind those around it: I didn’t take a candid picture! I didn’t secretly record it!
However, as mentioned earlier, using the voice interaction featured by Humane Ai Pin in public and social situations naturally cannot protect privacy and privacy. In this regard, I fully believe in the lazy nature and strong adaptability of human beings, and soon there will be a voice interaction etiquette in public and social situations that most people can accept
BTW, because of the continuous popularity of voice interaction, we can hear more about other people’s privacy in the company, school, and community, which is indeed in line with the curious and gossipy nature of human beings
6. Get rid of dependence on smartphones
Why the Humane Ai Pin is a standalone device and not a phone accessory is what I am most curious about about it
For example, Apple’s Vision Pro glasses are a huge, sensor-packed, CPU-like VR/AR glasses that run a whole set of world-changing “spatial computing” systems… I can understand that Apple designed it as a standalone device that doesn’t rely on computers
Integrating a complete computer into a brooch weighing tens of grams, why? (Note 3)
Sam Altman said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal reporter ( that they are trying to play the role of AI with new hardware forms (to the effect, I can’t remember the original words)
In this regard, the Humane Ai Pin, as a standalone brooch, should be just an early AI product form, and it is estimated that AI headphones, AI bracelets, AI rings, and AI tattoos optimized for AI and natural language interaction and voice interaction will soon appear……
Just looking at the demo video, the AI of the Humane AI Pin has partially implemented the effect of “Beam me up, Scotty” in Star Trek
But when it comes to human-computer interaction and user experience, under its cool human-computer interaction, the user experience seems to be more like Schwarzenegger stretching out his hand and saying “Talk to the hand” (Note 4) in “Terminator 3”.
These design problems of Humane can be solved in the future, for example, the iPhone is not achieved overnight, technology, product form, interaction methods, user usage habits, public cultural identity… It has also been improved over the years
Perhaps by the time Humane AI Pin version 3.0 is released, the new devices, new human-computer interaction design, and new user usage habits created around LLM AI will be “perfect”
In any case, Humane is a pioneer in bringing many concepts, ideas, and feelings to life and helping everyone validate immature designs, whether they are product designers, developers, or creators in a broad sense, we should thank Humane and their AI Pin
Note 1:
There is an idea to solve the problem that voice interaction is inconvenient to use in public places, or that voice interaction cannot be used in places such as libraries – speak silently
Researchers at Cornell University, who have studied different solutions; One is to film your cheeks from behind and use visual recognition + AI to guess what you say; The other is to install sonar on your glasses, use sound waves to detect your mouth movements, and then use AI to guess what you say
Note 2:
The term pretotype comes from the book “The Right It” by former Google product director Alberto Savoia and refers to a prototype of a more original and conceptual prototype than prototype, which is used to evaluate new design concepts before creating a product prototype
My method of testing the Humane AI Pin laser projection is simple, you can also try it: print a minimalist UI, then use scissors to cut the UI from paper and paste it on the palm of your hand to simulate the UI projected by the laser on your hand. Then try various postures, angles, and distances to fiddle with the UI on your hand to see how to operate your hands, eyes, and head most comfortably
The least uncomfortable state I tested was actually the posture in which Italians spread their palms when talking. And the pose demonstrated in the video is very distorted
Note 3:
I also tested what it feels like to hang a few tens of grams of something on your chest, and you can also test it: put a few tens of grams of weight (like an Apple Watch) in the pocket of the chest of the shirt to see if the shirt is crooked and if the neckline is dragged down 😌
Note 4:
The English proverb “Talk to the hand” does not mean “to speak to the hand”, but to the effect that “I don’t want to listen, shut up”. In the movie “Terminator 3”, Schwarzenegger’s robot forced passerby A to speak in a bar while saying this line to silence passer-by A, which became a joke in this movie