Artist and technologist the Rev Dan Catt had a spare Bee Pioneer unit and gifted it to me. it’s an AI listening device. I’ve lately gotten curious about the state of play in AI assistance – did a newsletter about it — with special interest in both intentional physical-operation devices like the Rabbit R1 and the things that melt into the background, which is what the Bee is. Wrist strap or, as I’m doing it, a clip that’ll attach to a shirt or belt.
On Dan’s recommendation, I’ve ordered a faraday pouch for it and I charge it in a silent room – because it will hear the tv as well as conversations when I wear it outside the office, and it will turn back on when it’s charging. It’s slow to catch up with work-account email – anything newer than a day or two, it can’t see — and it needs to be trained to look for the correct spelling of names in my work contacts.
You can change the voice on the associated iOS app, and the one I’m using sounds a little bit like Gildart Jackson pretending to be a 1940s BBC announcer, which amuses me.
I have no idea if this thing will have real utility or whether it’s just a nightmare ear in a box. But I’m going to play around with it, wait around and see what it can easily be connected to in the future, and see what it can do.