Why I ordered the rabbit r1.

So the biggest breakout device of CES 2024 was a small AI device about the same size as a stack of post-it notes from an unknown company called rabbit and designed by the Swedish powerhouse design firm Teenage Engineering.

This little device promises a lot. It promises to revolutionise the way you interact with your apps and by extension is looking to re-shape your relationship with technology. It relies on something called an LAM, a Large Action Model. The most famous AI product currently in use is probably OpenAI’s chatGPT, this is based on an LLM, a Large Language Model. LAM’s are to doing what LLM’s are to talking. Or at least that’s what rabbit is promising us with this device.

So what is it?

It’s a device with an LED screen, a scroll wheel, a push-to-talk button and a rotating camera. You interact with it primarily with your voice. It talks back to you and will perform tasks for you. In the demonstration it ordered an Uber for example.

Why is this different to Siri or Alexa?

It is supposedly able to complete much more complex tasks in your everyday apps after you’ve signed into them on rabbit’s web portal, the ‘rabbit hole’.

What is its killer feature?

Coming later after the launch is the ability to show rabbit a task you’d like it to complete and it will learn how to do that task. The example given was rabbit being shown how to generate an image using the AI image service MidJourney and then being able to complete the task itself just by being given a voice command. If this feature is true to what was demo’d the results and ecosystem that could spring up around it is very exciting.

So finally, why did I order one?

I think the honest answer is optimism. I bought it for the same reason I pre-ordered No Man’s Sky. I was sold on the concept and the idea. Will it live up to its promises? I doubt it, at least initially. But in the past couple of years I’ve become bored with the status-quo in technology and as we move into the age of AI I’m happy to vote with my money on the direction I’d like to see technology go.

Before the endless slabs of metal and glass, technology used to be fun and if all this lovely little rabbit/Teenage Engineering device turns out to be is a cute paperweight with a party trick, at least I and the people that have bought up the first few batches will have sent a signal to the big tech behemoths that this technological direction is worth exploring.

Here’s to the future.

✌🏼Liam