Where is the AI ​​in these “AI-powered” products for your home?

Around the release of ChatGPT in 2022, AI has become the buzzword for tech investors and startups. It is therefore only natural that in our technology-saturated consumer world, AI will soon become a buzzword in electronics and home appliances. And boy, is it still a buzzword. If you buy a device with “AI” built into its specifications, someone will sell you something.

But you might find yourself the proud owner of, say, an artificially intelligent toaster, and be left with plain old warm bread and a few questions about where all this supposed AI is going.

Artificial intelligence is a capability or attribute, not a thing, and it is highly subjective: the ability to simulate human intelligence, covers it more or less. Philosophers and computer scientists still need to refine what counts as artificial intelligence, what its potential is or isn’t, and how contemporary applications of “generative AI” like ChatGPT fit into the picture, but that’s beyond my level salary as a researcher. technical journalist. What I can tell you, however, is what companies walk like artificial intelligence.

So, a quick look at some home appliances is a fantastic way to see what companies think about AI and what they think consumers want AI to be. Keep in mind that anything automated or capable of performing a calculation can be considered AI if you broaden your definition enough, but that’s an obvious loophole. If you buy one of these devices for its AI capabilities and feel like you didn’t get actual AI, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get a refund, but at least after reading this , you’ll get a glimpse of how much, or how little, intelligence one can really expect from a gadget.

Here’s where AI fits into five pieces of technology for your home:

Nest learning thermostat

What it is: Google’s Wi-Fi-enabled thermostat that looks like a giant, glowing watch battery, found in about 100 percent of Airbnb units and about zero percent of rented accommodations.

What he does: When you first use it, by turning its ever-satisfying wheeled exterior to set your preferred temperature, it learns how hot or cold you want it to be at different times of the day. Then, if everything goes as planned, it optimizes your air conditioning and heating to suit your preferences without your constant intervention. If you have a smart home system and integrate your Nest thermostat with it, you can use voice commands to change the temperature, among other things.

Where is the AI ​​located: Google preview of the Nest thermostat does not mention AI (maybe because Google still has trouble clarifying things on the subject in general), but AI nevertheless represents a significant part of Nest product marketing and appears on all sorts of pages about Nest and Google Home, including an explanation on how to use AI-generated scripts to generate Google Home routines focused on climate control. So it can really integrate with generative AI.

As for AI in the classic functions of the Nest itself, Ramya Bhagavatula, software engineer at Google told an official Google blogger in 2020, “We use people’s preferences and add machine learning to find ways to help you save energy.” Optimizing temperature with a Nest thermostat involves AI algorithms that previously ran on the device and now run in the cloud. “Originally, each thermostat operated autonomously, but now we have the power to make intelligent decisions based on anonymized data, which may not have been possible if we had simply looked at each device individually” , explained Bhagavatula.

Samsung 2024 Custom 4-Door Flexible Refrigerator with AI Family Hub Plus

What it is: A refrigerator with one of its four doors almost entirely occupied by what looks like an iPad the size of a coffee table.

What he does: Most users treat Samsung’s Family Hub-compatible refrigerators — or any other smart refrigerators — as refrigerators that can also play MrBeast videos. But they can be integrated with the rest of your smart home if you have one, so if you’re a tech savvy, you can use it to do all sorts of cool things, like answer your door through your smart doorbell in standing up position. in your kitchen.

Where is the AI ​​located: Samsung’s Family Hub predates the AI ​​explosion of 2022. It has always included a system for streamlining the process of turning your refrigerated ingredients into meals using software that, for example, suggests recipes based on the foods you specify, automates shopping lists based on those recipes, and orders the foods you need. via refrigerated versions of shopping apps. It’s not the AI ​​part.

The new AI Family Hub feature announced at CES 2024 is putting AI at the forefront of its marketing, but if you imagine an artificially intelligent voice assistant that helps you cook, it doesn’t seem like Samsung has even tried to do that. The legitimate and unambiguous use of contemporary AI in this refrigerator appears to be a new camera with integrated AI computer vision so that your refrigerator can independently recognize the ingredients it contains, such as a tomato. This saves you from having to manually notify the refrigerator that you own tomatoes. Your tomato can then be integrated into the broader Family Hub software ecosystem, without AI.

CatGenie AI Self-Cleaning Cat Box

What it is: An automated cat box connected to your home’s plumbing system that can channel the cat’s urine and feces to a nearby toilet or sewage drain.

What he does: Even for an automated cat cage, this is a surprisingly sophisticated device in terms of configuration and number of moving parts. Once the CatGenie senses that a cat has done its business and left, liquid waste is flushed out the bottom, using proprietary non-clumping pellets in place of litter, which the mechanism then washes and dries. The solids are sifted and fed down a chute to a sort of macerator, where they are turned into a slurry that can then be fed into a toilet bowl with the liquid waste. What a time to be a cat parent.

Where is the AI ​​located: To my surprise, the basic mechanics of the CatGenie hasn’t really changed in over a decade. However, according to the website, the “AI” version “uses artificial intelligence to give you and your cat the most personalized waste management system ever invented for cats.” The AI ​​version also appears to be the only type of CatGenie sold new on the CatGenie websiteso there may well be no more classic CatGenie – only CatGenie AI

It’s a mystery which abilities of CatGenie should be considered AI. There is no evidence that it has – or would benefit from – computer vision rather than something simpler like an infrared sensor to recognize that a cat has entered and exited. It now comes with an app, allowing you to view a log of your cat’s litter box visits and control how often it scoops and self-cleans, but a marked improvement to the AI ​​in the app to optimize your cat’s use of the litter box. in relation to the number of cleanings is not obvious.

Mashable has reached out to CatGenie for an explanation of its AI claims and will include them if we receive a response.

Roborock S7 MaxV Robot Vacuum (with ReactiveAI 2.0 Obstacle Avoidance)

What it is: A robot vacuum cleaner that is supposed to avoid obstacles and animal droppings particularly easily compared to similar products.

What he does: If you can’t wrap your head around the idea of ​​getting a robot vacuum, maybe it’s because, like most people, you’re more of a redneck than you’d like to admit, and your floors are not sufficiently cleared of waste. give free rein to a robot without fearing that it will choke, for example, on a sock. This robot will actually avoid said sock.

Where is the AI ​​located: ReactiveAI 2.0 obstacle avoidance is a somewhat controversial functionality, because it doesn’t just use something like LIDAR, infrared censors or photocells, which serve more to detect boundaries than to avoid objects that should not be vacuumed. Instead, it sees into the nooks and crannies of your dirty house with an old-fashioned RGB camera. Roborock’s S7 MaxV features true AI computer vision that “knows” it’s looking at cat poop and will give that idiot the wide berth he deserves. Reviews suggest this is the real dealagain, if you don’t mind the intrusive RGB camera, which is currently a necessity to enable AI image detection.

Briiv Pro 2.0 “The world’s first AI-powered air purifier”

What it is: A tabletop air purifier that draws air through beautiful green moss and a coconut fiber disc, followed by a conventional filter. It is also the “world’s first AI-powered air purifier”.

What he does: It purifies indoor air and the foam is pretty.

Where is the AI ​​located: This product is successful Kickstarter page says it works by “leveraging a unique AI machine learning algorithm,” making it “the most advanced air quality monitoring system on the planet.” However, it’s not entirely clear that there is anything about this device that could be called more “artificially intelligent” than any other air purifier with an air monitor this allows it to react to pollutants in the air by lighting up.

A representative for Briff using the name Serena Nash told Mashable that Briiv uses AI. In an email, they explained that the device “integrates the library of information that we taught it, and then it runs an algorithm with that data, but the active part of the machine learning is cloud-based.” . The model itself is “not a big language model like IBM or GPT chat, so we can’t just talk to it with text prompts like big consumer models, we’re more like a neural network model ” Nash explained.

This email left us with more questions, including whether or not Briiv claims to use neural networks for deep learning. Or, if the company uses terms like “AI” and “algorithm” in other ways. As of this writing, Briiv has yet to elaborate following a request for clarity.