Lenovo showcased its progress and aspirations at its Tech World 2023 keynote on Tuesday, announcing its “AI for All” concept, which is aimed at spreading AI goodness to as many commercial and personal spaces as possible. But the idea of an “AI twin” was what caught my attention most as an attendee.
Yes, the idea of a company creating an AI twin of you online sounds downright disturbing — but don’t worry, in practice it’s not as creepy as it might appear. The general idea is for an AI assistant that has “in-depth knowledge” of you and, perhaps, your company, which will allow it to perform intelligent tasks on your behalf.
In many ways, Lenovo’s personal AI twin works identically to any AI assistant. With the data it gathers from from a user’s personal device, it will anticipate your needs and offer solutions, proactively and independently, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing said at the Tech World keynote.
The brand demoed the tool, comparing how it could draft an itinerary for a trip to Sweden for a specific time frame in less than 150 words against a standard AI assistant. While the standard AI assistant gave a generic plan that it might generate for anyone, Lenovo’s personal AI twin generated a trip schedule based on the user’s personal tastes, including giving the best airports to fly out of, suggesting specific restaurants, and giving detailed activities to do while traveling.
That might sound invasive from a data privacy standpoint, but Lenovo intends for the tool to have a strong focus on data privacy, with the AI only learning about the things you want it to learn, Dr. Yong Rui, Lenovo’s chief technology officer, told journalists at the event. As PCs become more inundated with artificial intelligence and on-device processing of AI, an AI twin is there to help users control the flow of their private data on the web.
In a later demo, a guide demonstrated the tool answering based on information stored locally on a device. He inputted his query and populated an answer. Then he showed where on the computer the file with the applicable information was located.
The company also highlighted that the tool is powerful enough to be used offline. The keynote demo was done in airplane mode, while the second demo was not connected to the internet. Dr. Rui noted that the foundational models on which the AI twin is based is so compressed that it can work without talking to the cloud at all.
Lenovo envisions a tool that ensures data is never sent to the public cloud, unless you give authorization. The tool functions using public databases, but does not extract from users’ data to train public models. The encroaching on users’ private data for public and corporate consumption has been an ongoing concern about the quickly developing AI space that isn’t stopping any time soon.
The personal AI twin effort is still in a development stage and the company has yet to decide how it will present the tool, whether it be an app or another experience. Ultimately, it will be up to customers, Dr. Rui said.
Either way, like so many tech companies these days, Lenovo certainly seems all-in on embracing AI with open arms.
Lenovo says the keynote was an “announcement of development,” adding that the tool is ready to be shipped with devices but the brand cannot share an exact timeline for availability.
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.