My AI assistant is not what I hoped for, but is what I expected.
Perhaps it was never expected that these glasses be worn in the way I am wearing them – all day, every day. Or maybe notifications are not supposed to be on all the time, and I have my volume too high.
But I committed to doing this, and I committed to using them as much as possible and engaging fully – so I’m going to. I planned to use each and every feature, as much as I possibly could.
Here’s where the problem lies. Noise. Notifications. A lack of solitude and quiet.
If I don’t turn off notifications, I am constantly bombarded by sound. A rare moment of quiet is interrupted by messages on WhatsApp, Messenger, Email notifications.
The AI will sometimes think I’m asking a question and do a ‘whoop’ sound to let me know it’s listening, even when I’m not speaking. I recently saw an advert for a sound bath experience near me. I am already in a sound bath, but it feels too hot for comfort. I sometimes imagine myself sitting in a cave, in silent meditation, and then ‘woop’ a reminder about picking up some more toothpaste ruins my moment of enlightenment.
This constant barrage of noise has its plus points, but it also feels like you are connected to a network – you are not ‘just you’. It is a very different experience to looking at a phone screen, which you can put down, or put away. If I take off the glasses, I can’t see.
What’s more, even when I mute notifications, there’s no guarantee it will work. The glasses seem to have a will of their own, occasionally changing voices from masculine to feminine, tired and world-weary to energetic and playful. Notifications are paused, only for another notification to be announced seconds later.
It’s like you are constantly answering the doorbell, but the doorbell is in your head.
It is not just me this affects, but anyone I talk to. The doorbell is disruptive to both speakers. Imagine your conversation being interrupted by a constant barrage of guests, knocking on the door, endless ringing – but only you can hear it.
Even when I go through a typical explanation and forewarning of the glasses, I still feel rude, knowing my attention will be divided.
To give some context, the typical interaction goes like this:
I explain that they are AI glasses with cameras and microphones and speakers and flashing lights, and that I won’t be recording them (audio or video). If they are keen to know more, I give a brief explanation – I take them off, show them the speakers, the LED light, the camera, the flashing light in the lense for voice activation, and the touch controls on the side. Then I show that the lenses don’t have any cool neon grid lines or HUD inside, they’re just prescription lenses. Sometimes I even do a ‘Hey…’ so they hear the speakers from afar, which is possible if the volume is up loud. Then we go back to whatever we were talking about.
No matter what it is – weather, work, holiday plans, I can be fairly sure that soon, a notification is going to interject. If not a notification, the AI will insist I’m asking it a question, and give a lighthearted response, possibly even a laugh. I will be halfway through listening to my friend, and then the flow will be interrupted: “NEW MESSAGE ON WHATSAPP.” Even if notifications are off, the threat of them reappearing is still there.
Whether the other person can hear it or not is irrelevant, they must be able to see my frustration, and the fact that I have had my flow of thoughts, or attention in listening interrupted. I might make some gesture, or tutt, or express annoyance. I may have to stop the conversation and explain that the glasses are talking, sorry – they don’t know about turn taking. I may have to pull out my phone and turn off notifications if all else fails.
This creates a problem that is different to your phone buzzing in your pocket.
I can ignore a phone. I can’t ignore this when it’s right in my ear, blocking out all else. I can try to stop the notification mid sentence by saying ‘Stop’, but this is not guaranteed to work, and might have an annoyingly polite follow up ‘sure, stopping now, just let me know if there’s anything else you need’.
On the other hand, sometimes timing works out, and I find it really helpful having these notifications come in. Sometimes I do genuinely need to ask a question hands-free, and then I’m super for the glasses. But in conversations? No. It just pulls you away from where you are.
The information arrives unsolicited, and sometimes when you have clearly asked not to receive it – making you feel somewhat out of control of your own sensory world. Checking a phone is a very deliberate social signal. Unless you hedge it correctly (sorry, my aunt’s in the hospital, I have to get this) I’d say it’s quite clear that you aren’t engaged in the conversation, and aren’t that bothered of the consequences of the other person realising this. But when you are invested, and you’re suddenly taken out, there must be a negative social effect, or even microeffect. Over time, what does this do to your conversations? Your attention span? Every time I get a notification, the sound drags me out of the flow.
These become more of an ongoing annoyance that I’ll have to live with. But it makes me think, do these microinterruptions accumulate over time? How much will conversation participants put up with? Will they find me less worth talking to? If I was the other person, I would no doubt feel uninterested in talking in depth, knowing that the other person would never really be tuned in.
The reality of this aspect of the wearable is that the constant sound ovelay on reality puts you in two places at once – in your world of cyberfriends, connections, messages, mails, and subscriptions, and in the real, living, physical world with actual people you can look at and speak to. Ironically, by being in both places at once, you are never really anywhere.
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