{"id":139,"date":"2026-06-02T13:20:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T13:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/?p=139"},"modified":"2026-06-02T15:12:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T15:12:56","slug":"005-no-theres-no-screen-im-disappointed-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/?p=139","title":{"rendered":"#005 – No, there’s no screen. I’m disappointed too."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have been wearing the glasses for a week or two, and my world has not changed dramatically.

One or two friends who are aware of the experiment have commented on them, but otherwise they appear to fly under the radar. From a privacy and security perspective, that is worrying. <\/a>

The fact that they are so subtle is even more concerning when you consider that Meta\/EssilorLuxottica sold 7 million pairs last year<\/a>, and that they contribute 80% of all smart glasses sales<\/a>.

Maybe the reason I haven’t seen many people wearing them up until now is because I simply didn’t pay attention to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I am refusing to record, audio or visual images of others (as documented in my post on ethics<\/a>) and keeping them off<\/strong> during any personal conversations, work meetings, or anywhere else that could be sensitive, I wonder about the other 6,999,999 wearers who are presumably using this device in different ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How are they thinking about discomfort, privacy, ethics, data storage, legal requirements? Are they thinking about them at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A lightly AI-edited shot of my Google Glass on the table. They were less subtle than the pair I wear day-to-day. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What do people ask?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When people do notice, or I tell them about the glasses, they usually ask two questions:

1) Is there a screen in the lenses you can see right now?
2) Are you recording right now?

The answer to both is no. With number 2 I feel confident and reassuring giving this answer – with number 1, I always feel a slight twinge of disappointment, and wonder if others feel that too. I explain that actually, these are just regular lenses, they don’t have a screen in, or a Heads Up Display (HUD). This reminds me that we are early days.

Yes, Meta does have an option with a display, and a neural band. It’s called, unsurprisingly, Meta Ray-Ban Display<\/a>. Try as I might, I can’t get access to them yet. In fact, their release in my part of the world is paused as a result of demand<\/a> in the U.S.

Questions then usually turn to, well what can you actually do with them? And my answer is honestly, so far, not a lot.

The lenses help me see, that’s good, if a little cliche.

I can look things up with the AI assistant.

The AI assistant gets things right often enough that I keep using it, but not often enough that I trust it.
<\/strong>
I can also take photos or videos. I can try to message someone on WhatsApp or Messenger, if I don’t mind the fact that I will probably end up messaging the complete wrong person, and then panic-open my phone to explain the mistake. This has happened more than once. I also wonder if the optimisation for certain accents means that I end up getting these happy accidents more than others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another useful-in-theory features is that I get message notifications, but for some reason it won’t recognise the name of whoever is messaging me. I have to work it out myself.

The most useful function with the AI assistant so far, by a mile, has been asking the time. But, I wouldn’t pay \u00a3400 for that privilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best feature is the built in headphones. Watching something, listening to music, or taking a phone call is now effortless and doesn’t require putting in or taking out headphones. But that’s not AI, that’s just bluetooth audio, which isn’t exactly brand-new technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m interested in looking into the accessibility features more. I have tried using the conversation focus, which amplifies voices when you’re in a loud environment. This is actually in theory quite special, but has a slight lag. That means you are always a few second behind the conversation, which can be inconvenient. But maybe I am not the target audience for this feature, and in no place to judge it.

What is the AI assistant exactly?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AI assistant, at the time of writing, is built on Llama 4<\/a>. While it is nice that this is an open-source model, the AI capability is extremely disappointing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not in the lenses, but in the ears. The speakers on both side give the response to any query that I ask. This query can be anything within reason, including starting to record a video, taking a photo hands free, or asking what I can see. It can be general knowledge, or even a long conversation.

Unfortunately, the context window is small. Replies are short and uneven, faltering, and basic. Long conversations can happen, but they become circular qiuckly. The AI appears to want to shut down any extended dialogue or interaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My long, rambling questions are dealt with quickly and efficiently, and sometimes, if I’m too angry or irritated, simply stopped without a reply (It seems unbelievable that the AI appears to give me the silent treatment). Often I am told I need to seek an expert’s advice. This is a job for your local ornithologist or cartographer, not me.

This combination of a refusal to engage, my own expectations, and the modest capabilities of the AI assistant makes for a very frustrating experience. In short, I have not found anything that the AI can do, other than tell me the time, or perhaps the weather, which makes ‘AI’ any better than looking it up myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do get some very amusing mistakes, which are entertaining but not always helpful. Yesterday, I asked whether it was a good idea to roast prawns in the oven.

“No, roasting coins in the oven is dangerous, do not roast coins in the oven”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have also tried on many occasions to identify creatures, plants, or other items in my garden, by asking

“Hey, what bird is that?” <\/strong>

Unfortunately, the reply is often <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I don’t see a bird in that image” <\/strong>(spoiler, the main feature of the image is a bird).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So birdspotting is out then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, plant identification is disappointing. I have routinely asked for trees identification (I’m curious and don’t know much about trees), and met with:

“Those leafy branches could be an oak, or another kind of tree. You can ask a local wildlife expert.”<\/strong>

Thanks, superintelligent assistant.

The fact that I (and others) expect an intelligent AI assistant, an affable companion who can do things in the real world and help orchestrate our lives, mediated through an in-lens screen tells me something. It tells me that what we want is sci-fi, fiction, super-robots.

We want to bring sci-fi to life. But the products we have are nowhere near.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do AI companies really believe that we are edging towards wearable superintelligence? Or are they playing into our dreams of fiction, frictionless, technology-orchestrated lives?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, these smart glasses seem less like the beginning of a useful, wearable intelligence, and more like an attempt to normalise that idea. The intelligence is not there yet – but the expectation is. We have been building it for decades through popular culture, movies, books, and games. The products are trying to meet these expectations, but they fall short.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been wearing the glasses for a week or two, and my world has not changed dramatically. One or two friends who are aware of the experiment have commented on them, but otherwise they appear to fly under the radar. From a privacy and security perspective, that is worrying. The fact that they are … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasperroe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}