An AI parade was held at Google's Pixel 8 launch.

 An AI parade was held at Google's Pixel 8 launch.

The search giant didn't miss a chance to tell us about all of its AI-powered smartphone features at the launch event for its most recent flagship smartphones. But who is it attempting to impress?

I'm not sure if you've heard, but Google's most recent products are loaded with AI.

 

There is Conversation Detection, an audio transparency feature powered by AI, Magic Editor, a tool for generative AI-powered photo editing, and improved heart rate algorithms, which are, yes, also AI-powered.

A great way to get more AI features from Google would be to update the OS every seven years.

 

All new photography features are powered by AI.

 

Tensor processor?

 

Designed for AI, baby! "As always, our focus is on making AI more helpful for everyone, in a way that's both bold and responsible," Google's hardware chief Rick Osterloh said in an introduction that, by my count, used the word "AI" more than a dozen times.

 

Google's presenters mentioned artificial intelligence (AI) more than 50 times during the hour-long launch.

During the hour-long event, Google's presenters used the word "AI" more than fifty times.

AI was already being used as a buzzword in 2019 to promote everything from toothbrushes to TVs. However, Google has aggressively positioned itself as a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence in recent presentations.

 

By the ChatGPT by OpenAI's overnight success and the quickness with which rival Microsoft had incorporated the new technology into its products, critics claimed it had been caught off guard.

 

However, Google runs the risk of overemphasizing the AI aspects of everything at the expense of the practical features that its users will actually use.

When Osterloh mentioned the initial 2016 Pixel launch onstage and mentioned how much Google was focused on AI even then, he unintentionally demonstrated this.

 

Osterloh observed, "Looking around the room here, I see a few people who were at our first Pixel launch seven years ago.

 

At that time, we explained that Pixel is designed to bring hardware and software together, with AI at the center, to deliver simple, fast, and smart experiences.

 

".

However, I failed to hear anyone use the word "AI" onstage during Google's 20-minute presentation on the original Pixel.

 

A lengthy Google Assistant voice control demonstration, a discussion of computational photography, and even the boast that the phone was "made for mobile virtual reality" were all included, but there were surprisingly few explicit references to artificial intelligence.

Osterloh claimed that the original Google Pixel was AI-powered; however, the comparison shows how differently Google is describing its goods and services in 2023 compared to 2016.

 

I'm not saying that Osterloh was lying.

 

When product manager Brian Rakowski spoke of the camera's "incredible on-device software algorithms," for example, the Google of today would undoubtedly have used the term "AI.".

 

Google's 2016 presentation, however, is more focused on the implications of these features for prospective customers than it is about altering public perception of the company's technical prowess.

When compared to Apple's presentations, where the company appears to actively avoid saying the two magic letters, the difference is even more pronounced. As my colleague James Vincent pointed out earlier this year, Apple still refers to technology that many other businesses would refer to as AI, but it does so much less frequently and instead uses the "sedate and technically accurate" term "machine learning":.

It favors emphasizing machine learning's functionality and the advantages it provides users, like the customer-focused business it is.

 

We do integrate it into our products, but people may not automatically think of it as artificial intelligence, as Tim Cook stated in a recent interview with Good Morning America.

 

".

Google, on the other hand, has no such reservations.

I don't believe this is a major issue, for the most part.

 

In the end, the output of the Pixel 8's photography pipeline will have to speak for itself, regardless of how much "AI" was involved along the way, so long as it is accurate.

But there were also times during this week's presentation when I wondered if some of the AI-powered features that Google demonstrated were really necessary.

 

Google's Sissie Hsiao demonstrated how Assistant with Bard could automatically generate a social media post to go up alongside a photo of Baxter the dog during a segment on the company's new generative AI-powered virtual assistant.

Assistant with Bard drafted, "Baxter the hilltop king!".

 

"Look who's on top of the world, doglover majestic hikingdog.

 

".

It makes sense as an example of generative AI technology. AI is getting better and better at identifying and describing images, and one of the greatest strengths of generative AI is writing in a particular style (especially one as cliché-filled as upbeat social media image captions).

But if you ignore the AI component and only consider this as a smartphone feature, I find it to be utterly perplexing.

 

What's the point?

 

If you ask a machine to draft an image caption for a picture, then why are you publishing the caption in the first place? How on earth have we gotten to a point where it makes sense for a smartphone to draft our personal social media posts for us?

I have a theory that Google is throwing features at a wall to see what sticks in the absence of a revolutionary application for generative AI. It seems like Google is looking for nails with a hammer with the label "generative AI," and this is leading the company in strange directions.

 

Before we even discuss the complicated effects of directly integrating generative AI into Google Photos, that is.

All of which begs the question: Who is Google trying to impress with all this talk of AI?

 

It is obvious to some extent that having an "AI-powered smartphone" is appealing to potential customers.

 

There is clearly interest in learning more about the AI hype since ChatGPT wasn't an overnight success for nothing.

However, I don't believe that is the whole picture, not when you use the word "AI" more than once every minute and fifteen seconds, on average, during the launch of a smartphone, and not when one of your main rivals, Apple, completely avoids using it.

If anything, it appears to be a reflection of Google's fear of appearing to have fallen behind in the hype surrounding AI. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella used the announcement that generative AI would be incorporated into Bing as a direct shot at Google.

 

With our innovation, Nadella hoped, "they will definitely want to come out and show that they can dance.".

 

The fact that we made them dance is something I want people to know. Google has since enthusiastically tap-danced through each of its presentations.

All of this poses no issues for Pixel owners or potential purchasers of Google's hardware.

 

However, people ultimately just want phones with useful features, regardless of Google's insistence that it is an AI company.

 

It runs the risk of putting the feature horse before the AI technology cart at some point.