Plaud’s AI-Driven NotePin Captures and Transcribes Conversations, Aiming to Build Your Digital Twin in the Future
Photograph: PLAUD
If you want an easy way to breeze through meetings, keep tabs on everyone you meet, or just remember that obscure dog food your vet recommended, there’s a gadget for that—whether it’s a necklace, wristband, or pin.
Plaud, an AI company, offers the Plaud Note—a sleek ChatGPT-enabled audio recorder that can attach to the back of your phone or slip into your shirt pocket to record, transcribe, and summarize conversations.
Their latest product, the Plaud NotePin, brings the same features to a wearable device roughly the size of a lipstick tube. The NotePin can be worn as a necklace, wristwatch, or pin, or clipped onto a lapel.
Priced at $169, it allows for up to 300 minutes of audio recording per month. For more, you can opt for a $79 annual subscription, which provides 1,200 minutes per month and extra features like speaker identification in transcriptions.
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If a wearable device with these features seems familiar, it’s because we’ve seen similar gadgets before. AI wearables are plentiful, though their practical value often remains questionable. Early AI gadgets like the Humane AI pin and Rabbit R1 didn’t gain traction, largely due to functionality issues, limited appeal, or simply because they could have been replaced by apps. Upcoming devices like the Friend AI necklace have faced backlash for their intrusive always-listening capabilities, which breach social norms about eavesdropping. Among AI hardware, Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses have seen some success, though their AI features could be improved. Many other AI wearables have either been unappealing, failed to deliver, or been outperformed by smartphones.
Despite this, companies like Plaud, Rewind.AI, and Limitless continue to push forward with new wearable gadgets. Google’s Pixel phones and Apple’s iPhones are also incorporating productivity features to enhance work efficiency. Plaud’s latest device, the NotePin, targets productivity enthusiasts—business professionals, salespeople, and those managing numerous meetings. The NotePin focuses on simplicity: it’s designed primarily for note-taking, with features for recording, transcribing, and summarizing conversations.
Plaud CEO Nathan Hsu highlights the potential of AI to handle real-life data beyond what’s digitized online. However, while AI transcription can assist, it’s not perfect. Issues like misinterpretation, accent recognition difficulties, and inaccuracies are common. Relying solely on AI-generated transcriptions can lead to errors and misunderstandings.
Security is another concern. While Plaud’s cloud service encrypts data, the NotePin itself is not encrypted. If lost, the device’s recordings could potentially be accessed if someone connects it to a computer. However, Hsu believes the proprietary connector and “find my” feature mitigate this risk.
Looking ahead, Hsu envisions a future where users might record all their conversations to create a digital twin—a comprehensive representation of themselves. This ambitious goal reflects the potential of AI to transform how we manage and recall our personal experiences. Yet, there are concerns about the impact of constant surveillance on personal development and social skills.
Ultimately, while Plaud has a compelling use case, it must compete in a crowded market with other devices and numerous smartphone apps. Users may find existing tools more effective than these new innovations.
“Everything that ChatGPT does, it does worse than something else that was designed to do that thing,” says Avijit Ghosh of Hugging Face. “I think people being gaslit into thinking these systems are more accurate than they are is the main problem.”
Src: www.wired.com
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