Rabbit R1 & The Future of Operating Systems

A future without smartphones, LLMs as operating systems, AI mind reading devices + conversation with Conrad Gray.

Podcast with Conrad Gray

I recently had a conversation with

Conrad Gray

who’s an expert in the intersection of biology and technology. In the video below we discuss among other things:

• The near-term future of synthetic biology and AI.

• When consumers will be able to purchase mind-reading AI devices.
  (such as this one )

• Whether or not a merger between AI and human intelligence is "inevitable" as some experts claim.

To follow Conrad's fascinating work, subscribe toHumanity Redefined.

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Rabbit R1 As the Future of Operating Systems?

Introduction

I usually don’t follow the newest trends in consumer tech products. I still use an old Android phone, and my old brick of a Lenovo laptop has served me well for over ten years.

Yet, the upcoming AI gadget, Rabbit R1, received so much attention last month that I couldn’t help reading about it quite often. It made me ponder if new AI devices, such as R1, could potentially pave the way for a future witout smart phones in which LLMs function as operating system. In the distant future, such devices could even be trained to respond to brain signals rather than voice commands. That’s what we will look closer at today.

New Wearable Gadgets

As I see it, Rabbit R1 gives us a glimpse of a promising future without beeping, attention-seeking devices that keep us glued to screens from morning to night. Principally, we humans should be in control over our devices and their infinite stream of information, but as we all know, it typically works the other way around.

Several companies are making early attempts to define a future where smartphones are either complemented or takes the backseat to new AI-powered, wearable gadgets. But as it turns out, making the new devices privacy-friendly and less distracting than smartphones is a formidable challenge. For example:

The Ray Ban-Meta Smart Glasses not only raise serious privacy concerns but are distracting to wear. The lead consumer tech writer for The New York Times, Brian X. Chen, reported in December last year how he was relieved to finally take the glasses off after two weeks of secretly snapping photos and recording videos of strangers in public.

Rewind Pendant is a wearable device made by the a16z-backed company, Rewind AI, that transcribes, encrypts, and stores everything you say and hear during the day on your phone. As with smart glasses, recording and storing people's private conversations without consent or knowledge is more than a bit privacy-intrusive, creepy, and would not fly under the GDPR requirements.

Humane is audaciously challenging the smartphone with the “AI Pin”, a small, rectangular, device that can be clipped onto a jacket or a shirt, and can send text, snap images, translate languages, and answer questions, with integrations to T-Mobile and OpenAI. The device is controlled by voice commands and can project a visual interface onto a person’s palm with a blue mini laser. The first AI pins will ship to consumers soon for a price of $699.

Although, I admire Humane’s mission of making a more human and less distracting alternative to smartphones, I believe that Rabbit’s R1 stands stronger to bring about a new paradigm in consumer tech.

LLMs as Operating Systems

A while back, I came across a quote by Andrej Karpathy, a reputable computer scientist, former Director of AI at Tesla and currently working at OpenAI. He said that we should not think of LLMs as chatbots but as the kernel process of an emerging operating system.

I didn’t understand the statement to begin with. Then I watched a lecture by Karpathy (below) –by the way a brilliant explainer of LLMs – and it dawned on me how impactful the idea of LLMs as new operating systems potentially is.

In the future, LLMs could be access points to the internet. You provide a device with a request and an LLM fulfills it by connecting to third-party services. No apps required. Digital services and online businesses would no longer be as consumer-facing as they are today.

Turning the internet from a domain of primarily “human connections” to a domain where AI agents connect in a clockwork-like system to service us, not the other way around, is a pivotal idea. It would require a substantial shift in both hardware, our mentality, and our relationship with information technology. The transition would be slow, probably closer to a lifetime than a few years. On the upside, using app-less or even screenless AI devices instead of vibrating and noise-producing smartphones would solve contemporary perils associated with negative impacts of social media and phone addiction. This is where Rabbit’s R1 comes into the picture.

Rabbit R1

In the aftermath of last year’s AI hype cycle, the tech crowd is more than accustomed to weekly breakthroughs, impressive products, and wild promises. Still, during this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, one presentation managed to awaken widespread excitement; the demo of R1 from the relatively unknown startup, Rabbit.  Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella called the debut of R1, the most impressive presentation since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone (Decrypt).