CES 2025 brought AI to IRL—with a whole lot of slop
Plus the latest links about Journalism vs. AI
The annual Consumer Electronics Show recently happened in Las Vegas. And from what I’ve been reading, it involved a torrent of AI hype thanks to hardware companies now shoehorning machine-learning capability into as many products as they can.
One such example was a camera called Petal, a spycam device that mimics a flower to photograph fauna in your backyard—which then uses AI to report back what it saw.
Another new contraption is the ChefMaker 2 from fan and heater brand Dreo. It’s an AI-powered air fryer that can read cookbooks, not unlike robot Johnny 5’s insatiable quest for input from the 1986 movie Short Circuit. Beyond the fact that recipes can already be found online, is anyone looking for a device to perform this specific task?
CES 2025 was described by Fast Company as a giant exercise in AI gaslighting, packed with apparent solutions to problems we never really had. TechCrunch went one step further by indicting this spectacle as being full of IRL AI Slop.
One product that did catch my attention is a rival to AI necklace startup Friend, which I wrote about in September. The brain-interface app Omi promises to boost productivity by syncing with your neural patterns: one part Black Mirror, another part self-help seminar.
Whether it’s groundbreaking or gimmicky remains to be seen, but it garnered attention just for demonstrating a seamless integration of software with hardware.
Meanwhile, the leading chipmaker Nvidia stole the show with actual innovation. In a keynote address at The Sphere, the shiny new high-tech concert hall, CEO Jensen Huang unveiled Blackwell, and called it the biggest leap in computer graphics since programmable shading—with the declaration that the engine of AI has arrived for PC gamers, developers and creatives. In a sea of hype, Nvidia delivered something real.
Otherwise, it sounds like most of the other products will be better off staying in Vegas.
Latest links about journalism and AI
Apple says it will update AI feature after inaccurate news alerts [The Guardian]
False alerts summarized BBC app notifications to wrongly say that Rafael Nadal had come out as gay—and that that Luigi Mangione, a man accused of killing a U.S. insurance boss, had shot himself
How journalism will adapt in the age of AI: John Micklethwait [Bloomberg News]
AI promises to get under the hood of our industry—to change the way we write and edit stories. It will challenge us, just like it is challenging other knowledge workers like lawyers, scriptwriters and accountantsALS sidelined this Israeli TV journalist. AI is helping him make a comeback [Associated Press]
“It took me a few moments to absorb it and to understand that it is me speaking now. Slowly, slowly, I’m understanding the incredible meaning of this device for everyone with disabilities, including me.”