The AI-powered Rabbit R1 device can be seen at Rabbit Inc.’s headquarters in Santa Monica, California. The gadget is meant to act as a personal assistant that performs tasks like ordering food on DoorDash, hailing an Uber, and booking a family vacation.
NPR’s Stella Kalinina
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NPR’s Stella Kalinina
The AI-powered Rabbit R1 device can be seen at Rabbit Inc.’s headquarters in Santa Monica, California. The gadget is meant to act as a personal assistant that performs tasks like ordering food on DoorDash, hailing an Uber, and booking a family vacation.
NPR’s Stella Kalinina
ChatGPT gives you travel ideas, but you can’t book flights to Cancun.
Now, artificial intelligence can help us cross items off our to-do lists.
A series of technology startups are developing products that use AI to complete real-world tasks.
Silicon Valley watchers see this new “AI agent” as the next step in the generative AI boom that took hold with the launch of chatbots and image generators.
Last year, Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, gave a nod to the future of AI errand helpers at the company’s developer conference.
“Eventually, you’ll just ask the computer what you need and the computer will perform all of these tasks for you,” Altman said.
It’s similar to a walkie-talkie, but with an animated rabbit head on it.
One of the most hyped companies doing this is Rabbit. We have developed a device called Rabbit R1. Chinese entrepreneur Jesse Liu unveiled the product at CES, the annual technology trade show held in Las Vegas this year.
It’s a bright orange gadget about half the size of an iPhone. There’s a button on the side that you press to talk like a walkie-talkie. Upon request, an AI-powered rabbit head will appear and attempt to perform any task requested.
Chatbots like ChatGPT rely on technology known as large-scale language models, and Rabbit says it uses both that system and a new type of AI it calls “large-scale action models.” Ta. Basically, it learns how a user uses his website or app and imitates these actions after voice prompts.
Not only can you play a song on Spotify or start streaming a video on YouTube (which Siri and other voice assistants can already do), Rabbit can also order a DoorDash, hail an Uber, and more. They even book family vacations for you. It then learns the user’s tastes and preferences and makes recommendations.
Storing passwords for potentially dozens or hundreds of individuals immediately raises questions about privacy. But Rabbit claims that it stores user credentials in such a way that neither it nor anyone else can access anyone’s personal information. The company says it does not sell or share user data with third parties “unless we have formal and explicit permission.”
A Rabbit employee will demonstrate the company’s Rabbit R1 device. The company says more than 80,000 people have pre-ordered the device for $199.
NPR’s Stella Kalinina
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A Rabbit employee will demonstrate the company’s Rabbit R1 device. The company says more than 80,000 people have pre-ordered the device for $199.
NPR’s Stella Kalinina
The company says more than 80,000 people have pre-ordered the Rabbit R1, and it expects it to start shipping in the coming months.
“This is the first time that AI exists in hardware form.” said Ashley Bao, a spokeswoman for Rabbit’s headquarters in Santa Monica, California. “I think we’ve all been waiting for this moment. We had Alexa. We had smart speakers. But none of them looked like it.” [can] Follow tasks from end to end and turn words into actions. ”
Want to spend less time on the phone and get things done?
Silicon Valley’s excitement about AI agents is fueling an increasingly crowded field of gizmos and services. Google and Microsoft are competing to develop products that use AI to automate busy tasks. Web browser Arc builds tools that use AI agents to surf the web. Another startup called Humane has developed a wearable AI pin that projects a display image onto the user’s palm. In addition to assisting with daily tasks, it is also expected to reduce the frequency of people picking up the phone.
Similarly, Rabbit claims that its devices allow users to complete tasks without opening the app (users log in to all the various apps on the Rabbit web portal, so their credentials are not required). perform work on your behalf).
The Rabbit R1 must be connected to Wi-Fi to work, but there’s also a SIM card slot in case you want to buy a separate data plan just for the gadget.
Asked why people would want to carry around a separate device just to do something they can do in 30 seconds on their smartphone, Rabbit spokesperson Ryan Fenwick said, “You can use the app to order and make requests.” We argued that it would take a whole day longer than we expected.
“We aim to automate the entire process end-to-end as much as possible, making these complex actions much faster and more intuitive than is currently possible with multiple apps on a smartphone. We’re looking into it,” Fenwick said.
Is this equipment necessary?
The introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022 has excited companies across many industries. Trying to ride the wave of the latest technology industry. Yext analyst Duane Forrester said the rise of chatbots is moving into the gadget world.
Google and Microsoft are racing to develop products that use AI to automate busy tasks, potentially rendering other AI-powered assistants obsolete.
NPR’s Stella Kalinina
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NPR’s Stella Kalinina
Google and Microsoft are racing to develop products that use AI to automate busy tasks, potentially rendering other AI-powered assistants obsolete.
NPR’s Stella Kalinina
“In the early days, the release of AI meant that every product and service had an ‘A’ or an ‘I’ attached to it,” Forrester said. “I think we’ll eventually see a version of that in hardware as well.”
Forrester said AI walkie-talkies could quickly become obsolete as companies like Apple and Google make their voice assistants smarter with the latest AI innovations.
“We don’t need any separate hardware to make this happen,” he said.
“What you need is Today’s smartphones have this level of intelligence and practicality, and we will get there eventually. ”
AI agents fuel fears of runaway AI
Researchers are concerned that AI-powered personal assistant technology may ultimately fail.
NPR’s Stella Kalinina
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Researchers are concerned that AI-powered personal assistant technology may ultimately fail.
NPR’s Stella Kalinina
Researchers are concerned about where these techniques could ultimately fail.
For example, an AI assistant buying the wrong non-refundable flight ticket or having a food order sent to someone else’s house are among the potential disasters analysts mention.
A 2023 paper by the Center for AI Safety warned about AI agent fraud. If an AI agent is given an “open-ended goal”, such as maximizing profits in the stock market, without being told how to achieve that goal, it can go very wrong. said.
“As AI becomes more capable, there is a risk that it will become uncontrollable. We suggest that AI should not be deployed in high-risk situations: autonomously pursuing unrestricted goals unless proven to be safe; “These include oversight of critical infrastructure,” the paper’s abstract states.
At Rabbit’s Santa Monica office, Rabbit R1 creative director Anthony Gargash is touting the device as a social media reprieve. Book a doctor’s appointment, Book a hotel without spending hours glued to an app’s feed.
“There is absolutely no doomscrolling in Rabbit R1,” says Gargasz. “The scroll wheel is for intentional manipulation.”
his colleague Ashley Bao He added that the point of the gadget is “to do things efficiently.” But she acknowledged that there is also a cuteness factor compared to the keychain-sized electronic pets that were popular in the 1990s.
“It’s like a Tamagotchi, but with AI,” she said.
