Man, I was really looking forward to telling y'all about my wild night in New York City earlier this week. I got invited to check out this swanky launch party for some new AI gadget called the Rabbit R1. It was supposed to be my ticket home!
This R1 thing is a chunky little orange fella with a camera, mic and small screen. All you gotta do is press and hold the button and ask it a question using your voice. Then this cute bunny pops up on screen and listens intently with its ears perked up.
In theory, it's like talking directly to ChatGPT but through a walkie talkie instead of your phone. You could get it to ID flowers, play songs based on lyrics you sorta remember, or call you an Uber for the ride home.
But after messing with the R1 for a good hour after the party, I just couldn't get it to work right. The connection kept crapping out on me and I was stranded in Queens with no way to get back to Brooklyn!
I was hoping to test out all its cool features and skills. Instead, I ended up having to walk like 20 blocks to the subway. Maybe the R1 just isn't quite ready for prime time yet. But I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this thing to see if it improves.
Let me tell you about the other stuff I tested out with my Rabbit R1 after it got me home from the big launch party in NYC.
I was hangry from the long walk to the subway, so I held up a cold slice of pizza to my room. “What am I looking at?” The R1 took a look through its camera and correctly said “You are looking at a slice of pizza.” But then it tried telling me it looked “freshly baked” which was definitely not true!
Next, I thought I'd stump it with a real question. "What are the top 10 best use cases for AI for a normal person?" But as I blurted it out, I let go of the button too early. The confused little R1 started listing pizza toppings instead of AI applications! It went "2. Sausage. 3. Mushrooms. 4. Extra Cheese." Too funny.
I have to say, while the concept of this talking rabbit on a block is super cool, the execution still needs some work. It clearly got mixed up between our conversation and pizza orders. I'll be interested to see if future updates can make the R1 a bit less buggy and more reliably helpful. Fingers crossed it keeps improving!