When AI-powered means rebranded rip-off

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Build a better mousetrap and the world apparently will beat a path to your door. Alternatively, if you don’t actually have any new ideas, perhaps you can just rebrand the existing device as AI-powered.

Proclaiming the benefits of the latest technology is a well-tried staple of the retail business. So it should not have required expensive visits to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to predict that every absurd gadget is finding ways to incorporate the promise of AI into its latest merchandise.

There is always a new thing. Once it was digital (glows in the dark). Then it was online (if your modem was up to it). Then it was items with an “e” in front of them, at least until Steve Jobs replaced the “e” with an “i”. Then “connected”, “smart”, “voice-activated” and “virtual”.

And every year the word du jour was added as a prefix to otherwise unsensational products. We all fall for it from time to time. Some years back, I acquired what I was assured was a smart TV, and yet it still seems to show Mrs Brown’s Boys. Just how clever can it be?

Anyway, as the AI revolution has gathered pace, it has become an essential part of any event. No conference on any theme is complete without sessions on AI, and the Consumer Electronics Show is the Shangri-La for sales reps in search of suckers.

For years, consumer journalists have emerged from this mecca of electronic tat, evangelising the latest range of smart fridges, connected washing machines and vacuum cleaners that are so intelligent they are already members of Mensa.

Among the treats in this year’s show is an anti-snoring pillow that uses the power of AI to analyse the noises you make and then inflates or deflates to gently ease your head into a different position. Apparently, it is so sophisticated that it can even distinguish your night-time grunts from the roar of a Kawasaki screaming past your window. I’m not sure that this sort of machine-learnt pattern recognition actually counts as AI but the idea sounds tempting, at least until you discover that the price of all this alleged computing power is a little under $1,000 a pillow. Even an Emma pillow will only set you back about £60, so that’s a lot of money for something which fundamentally is benefitting someone else. And $1,000 can buy you a lot of earplugs.

At that price, I’m afraid I’ll be sticking with the actually intelligent device known as a wife who digs you in the ribs when the volume gets too loud. I am reliably informed that all models come with this function as standard.

But worry not, there are plenty of other options, like an AI-powered mirror. This has potential. A mirror that sends you off in the morning thinking you look like Channing Tatum might be worth a bob or two. Sadly, this one simply analyses your skin before advising on beauty products you might want to buy.

The AI-powered vacuum cleaner uses advanced technology to identify different floor surfaces. An AI cat flap stops your moggie bringing dead mice into the house and an AI baby monitor purports to translate different infant sounds so you understand why your baby is crying. An AI dog collar and bowl allegedly identify feeding requirements, while an AI door lock works off face recognition. An AI grill assesses the right time to cook meat — and on and on. I was quite taken with a staggeringly expensive pair of binoculars that can identify birds, but overall two points emerge.

First, that much of this is not really “AI” in the way we think of it today — it is just the necessary moniker of the moment. The term is so overused that America’s Federal Trade Commission has warned producers against “baseless” claims. Second, much of the technology is doing things you can already do for yourself. Most of these devices will fail either because the tech is simply not necessary, or the cost exceeds the utility provided. Which leads to a third point, that overwhelmingly, this is simple, good old-fashioned hucksterism, a way of taking money from people who have too much of it.

The intelligence may be artificial, but the gullibility of those who fall for it, well that’s entirely genuine.

Email Robert at robert.shrimsley@ft.com

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