> The last thing I want (and most others should want) is a world where only Apple and Google are the only ones hosting mobile AI products.
I think the thing people should want is on-device AI.
Because I honestly don't see the advantage in terms of privacy or performance to have Rabbit R1 proxy my requests to chatgpt or other cloud LLMs... At that point I might as well use Google AI or Apple AI instead of adding 2+ parties to my private AI use.
> If a new hardware form factor is the way to break that duopoly then I wish them all the best.
The only real allure of a separate device, for me, is isolating the bot from my data. I don't want it reading my emails and notifications and who knows what else. I suppose you could also market this for kids but they didn't go that route.
That is my thought as well. But then, wouldn't it be better to get a separate cheap phone and install ChatGPT or Claude on it?
Purely from a hardware perspective, a phone has all the sensors, chips etc needed for AI applications, so I'm puzzled why Humane and Rabbit thought that a standalone device was a better idea.
Marketing it to children means you have to start worrying about COPPA (if in the US, where Rabbit is HQ'd) or similar legislation elsewhere. An AI device that accepts voice input and is supposed to learn and adapt to your use-case is at ends with laws that say you cannot collect any information from children — not even an email address or username.
Their product doesn’t make any sense besides as an app. No one is going to carry a separate device around when your smartphone can do everything it can better. The chatGPT app on the iPhone already does everything the rabbit does better. They offer nothing.
The ChatGPT app requires a subscription, and offers no "Large Action Model" behavior (i.e. API tie-in to perform actions on other apps like Spotify/Doordash/Uber/Midjourney). The former is a nice bonus (10 months of ChatGPT $20 sub = one time purchase price of Rabbit R1), the latter has the potential in its fully realized form to make Rabbit infinitely more useful as an assistant.
Rabbit's approach is one-sided (train their model to generate needed API calls, and maybe also perform Selenium-style simulated actions?) which should make it more flexible if inherently less reliable than dedicated plugins written by developers from the apps looking to be called via AI
Having to rely on one company to train their API calls makes it less flexible and less reliable except maybe for the largest apps. Even if they did it better than chatGPT (and I don’t think they can), that would be the thinnest of moats.
That said long term I want them or others to succeed.
The last thing I want (and most others should want) is a world where only Apple and Google are the only ones hosting mobile AI products.
As any phone OS integrated Apple AI or Google AI will beat out any shipped apps store AI app long term.
If a new hardware form factor is the way to break that duopoly then I wish them all the best.