In news that surprises absolutely no one, the makers of the infamous Humane AI Pin—a device that was overpriced, underwhelming, and widely returned—have been acquired by HP.
As expected, this acquisition effectively bricks existing AI Pins. According to the press release, some features will still work, such as checking the battery level. Incredible.
The real kicker? The people behind this spectacular failure are getting a massive payday from HP. Meanwhile, customers who dropped $700+ (plus a monthly fee!) on this glorified paperweight are left in the dust.
HP has a long history of acquiring pointless companies, so this doesn’t redeem the AI Pin in any way. If anything, it just reinforces that the product was as worthless as everyone suspected.
I was hoping this saga would end in Humane going bankrupt—not them cashing out. But here we are.
Hewlett-Packard, buying bankrupt startups since 1939.
so they are Inhumane now
It was on the tin. How anyone thought otherwise boggles the mind.
How are the employees making out with the deal? An old colleague of mine got suckered into a role there … lemme check if he already jumped ship
I have no specific information, but usually when a company is gobbled up like this, the employees get the short end of the stick. Given how nasty Humane was to their own customers, I can’t imagine the employees are getting treated well. Really depressing to see such a scummy CEO and company get a payday like this. I can’t imagine what HP saw in them.
They probably had a little decent IP.
Shitbirds of a feather shit together.
So one of the first and only practical stand-alone products for AI has been sold for scrap.
Cool.
Cool cool cool.
practical
Please don’t ever put this word in the same paragraph as the Humane pin. Have you seen what that thing did?
Fair.
It wasn’t standalone though everything still ran on the cloud. At the time the product came out everyone said exactly the same thing, this product is just an interface for a remote AI so why not just use a phone?
Given the fact it had the battery life of a suicidal mayfly and the capacity to heat itself up to 700° I could forgive you for thinking it was running the AI locally
No of course that’s true, I’m just saying it was an actual product based specifically, and only, around AI. The fact that it was a physical device underscores that.
How many others are there? The AI hype train has suggested we’d already have AGI and there would be no need to pay any workers for anything by now - where is it? It’s nowhere. There’s nothing. The fraud is coming from inside the bubble.
If we have a do get AGI money will become instantly worthless and so there isn’t really any incentive for these companies to actually make AGI.
That’s not quite the same as saying that it’s an impossible target though. But if we want it we’ll have to do it ourselves there’s no way the corporations are going to do it.
That’s why this product was so blatantly stupid from the outset and why no one bought it.
You think no one’s working on AGI because it will make money worthless?
What a waste of money. I wouldn’t wish it to anymore more deserving, than HP
