The question no one’s answering about AI on Android in 2024

I’m typically not one for sweeping tech predictions.

This year, though, it seems safe to put one particularly bold premonition out into the virtual wild. It’s less of a prediction, mind you, and more of a certainty we’re already seeing play out:

This year, we’re gonna be hearing an awful lot about AI — in an awful lot of our existing platforms, products, and Android-associated services.

A daring prediction to make, I know — right? But it’s one worth discussing, ’cause while most of the tech-watching world is going gaga over the endless AI hype oozing out of every digital corner right now, I’m finding myself growing weary of the buzzword-chasing sensationalism those two luscious letters are creating. And I’m growing increasingly skeptical about the practical, real-world value most of this stuff is actually poised to bring us.

So while tech companies near and far encourage us to ooh and ahh over the latest injections of alleged artificial intelligence into their various wares, I’d like to step back for a moment and ask a simple, pointed question — one I’ve yet to see anyone effectively answer:

How much of the current rush to cram some form of “AI” into everything imaginable is actually about what’s useful and advantageous for us, as human users of these creations? And how much is more about chasing the latest buzzword du jour and finding a reason to use the term “AI,” no matter what it accomplishes or how it fits into our lives?

It’s a question worth asking. And the honest answer might reveal a lot about our current tech moment and what’s on the horizon for 2024.

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Google, Android, and AI everywhere

As I write this, we’re on the brink of a bunch of monumental launches in the AI’ization of our current tech landscape. (That’s a word, right?!)

To wit: At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, everyone and their mother is showing off some manner of newfangled AI-enhanced gizmo — a “tsunami of AI,” as one analyst put it. From chatbots in the car to the world’s first AI-powered grill and even an AI-enhanced toothbrush (yes, really!), artificial intelligence is everywhere you look across the sprawling and suspiciously sticky convention floor. In fact, Intel’s motto for the event is “AI everywhere,” which pretty much says it all.

But does anyone genuinely want all of that? Is it about serving us, as humans, or more about “AI” for the sake of “AI” and its current marketing advantages?

Beyond CES and specific to the realm of Android, Google’s gearing up to give us a whole new version of Assistant that’s built with the company’s AI-based Bard chatbot at its core. While folks who rely on the current version of Assistant for basic tasks like memos, reminders, and connected device control have been finding that service to be less and less reliable with every passing month, Google’s been focused squarely on its next phase — one that’s powered by this next-gen generative AI technology.

To that end, early signs suggest the new version of Assistant will revolve largely around the same tasks we see Bard tackling now — composing prose and creating images, serving up detailed info of questionable accuracy on assorted subjects, and summarizing existing information, also with disconcertingly questionable accuracy — with the traditional Assistant features most people want being ported over bit by bit over time.

One under-development screenshot surfaced by the site 9to5Google suggests the new Assistant will advise newcomers that it’s “learning some classic Assistant features,” while earlier reports suggest the onus may fall upon us to switch from the “new” Assistant to the “classic” Assistant whenever we need to access those more practical “legacy” options.

But does anyone actually need an on-demand text and image generator at their phone’s platform level — especially when such functions are popping up in practically every app, browser, and even Android keyboard already? And does anyone want the simpler, more core Assistant functions to become buried and less easily accessible?

The list only keeps going from there. Seriously — we could do this all day:

• Next week, Samsung will show off its next-gen Galaxy S24 series of phones — and you can take a guess at what two letters those devices will revolve around.
• Microsoft just renamed its Android web browser to “Microsoft Edge AI Browser” and its Android keyboard app to “Microsoft SwiftKey AI Keyboard” in a push to emphasize the same ol’ generative AI chatbot flummery now baked into those products.
• And I’ve lost count of the number of other random apps that have suddenly become “AI apps,” despite being virtually no different than they were six months earlier.

To be clear, AI in our tech can absolutely be valuable. Google’s been using some form of AI to power many of its most useful Android features for years now, in fact, including the Pixel’s various smart calling capabilities.

But suddenly, over the past six months or so, “AI” has evolved into a very specific sort of buzzword that’s more about this chatbot-style generative balderdash than anything.

We’ve been down this road before, with mind-numbingly overhyped tech trends that are positioned as The Future of Everything™ — until suddenly they aren’t. Anyone remember the metaverse? How ’bout bitcoin? Or blockchain? (Do a quick search for any of those terms along with the phrase “changes everything” if you need a refresher.)

AI, in contrast, isn’t pure hype with nothing of practical value beneath it. But the current craze around the concept and the obsession with cramming the same basic generative tech into everything imaginable and then branding it as an “AI app” is the same sort of over-the-top, self-serving silliness that’s more about seizing a momentary marketing advantage than anything related to our interests.

And it seems like a pretty safe prediction to say we’re gonna see a whole lot more of that in the months ahead.

With any luck, the various Android-associated organizations will eventually move past “AI” for the sake of “AI” and start focusing again on features that actually matter for us, as humans — ’cause at the end of the day, we don’t need yet another way to generate mediocre text or subtly creepy images in every last corner of our virtual worlds.

We need thoughtful, practical tools that make a meaningful difference in our day-to-day lives — whether they’ve got two suddenly popular vowels attached to ’em or not.

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