The AI Tamagotchis are coming

AI 电子宠物时代即将来临

Personal AI hardware has mostly crashed and burned. OpenAI and Meta are counting on two selling points: It’s useful, and it’s cute. 个人 AI 硬件设备大多以失败告终。OpenAI 和 Meta 正寄希望于两个卖点：既实用，又可爱。

While AI has made plenty of inroads on people’s phones and computers, it’s largely failed in dedicated devices. But over the next year, two major AI companies, Meta and OpenAI, will attempt to change that. And they’re apparently betting on a similar path: testing appetites for physical hardware with their cutesy software agents. 尽管 AI 已在手机和电脑上取得了长足进展，但在专用硬件设备上却基本折戟。但在未来一年里，Meta 和 OpenAI 这两家 AI 巨头将试图改变这一现状。显然，它们押注于相似的路径：通过可爱的软件智能体来测试市场对实体硬件的需求。

“Hardware is hard” is a tech industry mantra. Dedicated AI devices like the Friend and Humane AI Pin have inspired mainly frustration and backlash, which may only worsen as public anger toward AI grows. Meta and OpenAI, however, are both pushing ahead. OpenAI is working with famed ex-Apple designer Jony Ive and plans to ship no earlier than February 2027, per a public filing. Meta aims to launch a pendant-like device sooner, before this year’s holiday shopping season. “硬件难做”是科技行业的金科玉律。像 Friend 和 Humane AI Pin 这样的专用 AI 设备主要引发了用户的挫败感和抵触情绪，随着公众对 AI 的不满情绪日益增长，这种情况可能会进一步恶化。然而，Meta 和 OpenAI 都在继续推进。根据公开文件，OpenAI 正与前苹果著名设计师乔尼·艾维（Jony Ive）合作，计划最早于 2027 年 2 月出货。Meta 则计划更早推出一款类似吊坠的设备，赶在今年的假日购物季之前。

While OpenAI’s hardware didn’t make an appearance at this year’s DevDay, the company debuted a major new AI agent platform called Dots, complete with personalizable colored blobs with eyes. During a Q&A with reporters after the keynote, when asked whether Dots would make their way into a future physical hardware device, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman replied that that “seems like a very reasonable thing to assume we may do someday,” declining to offer further details. 虽然 OpenAI 的硬件并未在今年的开发者大会（DevDay）上亮相，但该公司发布了一个名为“Dots”的全新重要 AI 智能体平台，其特色是带有眼睛、可个性化定制的彩色圆点形象。在主题演讲后的记者问答环节中，当被问及 Dots 是否会出现在未来的实体硬件设备中时，OpenAI 首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）回答称，这“看起来是一个非常合理的假设，我们未来可能会这样做”，但他拒绝透露更多细节。

Meta, meanwhile, is more directly tying its hardware to the recently released Muse agent. Compared by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to a keychain, the device is called the Muse Charm, and it bears a screen featuring its cuddly-looking Muse AI agent, giving it the air of a Tamagotchi. “We’ve packed a lot of technology into this little guy,” Zuckerberg said onstage. “So, if you’re not wearing glasses, this is going to be by far the fastest way to talk to your Muse and to show it what’s going on around you.” 与此同时，Meta 将其硬件与最近发布的 Muse 智能体直接挂钩。首席执行官马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）将其比作钥匙扣，这款设备被称为“Muse Charm”。它配备了一个屏幕，显示着外形可爱的 Muse AI 智能体，给人一种“电子宠物”（Tamagotchi）的感觉。扎克伯格在台上表示：“我们将大量技术浓缩进了这个小家伙体内。所以，如果你没戴眼镜，这将是与你的 Muse 对话并向它展示周围环境的最快方式。”

Both OpenAI and Meta have likely learned from other companies’ failed hardware rollouts, and their resulting strategy seems to be soft-launching AI agents before hard-launching the hardware. Their solution for hacking the hardware problem is to prime the market by getting people used to AI agents, hoping people will spread the word that “yes, they really work now.” Once people find value in — and even get attached to — the cutesy agents, they might want them in a more physical form. OpenAI 和 Meta 很可能从其他公司失败的硬件发布中吸取了教训，其策略似乎是在正式发布硬件之前，先进行 AI 智能体的“软启动”。他们解决硬件难题的方案是先让人们习惯使用 AI 智能体来预热市场，希望人们能口口相传“它们现在真的很好用”。一旦人们发现了这些可爱智能体的价值，甚至对它们产生了依赖，他们可能就会想要拥有其实体形态。

When asked during the DevDay press Q&A whether Dots will likely become the primary interface for interacting with ChatGPT, Thibault Sottiaux, OpenAI’s head of core products, said the company would be “evolving ChatGPT in place to be this incredible personal assistant very soon” and that he believes that as people are able to reach their AI agents via email, text, or phone call, the point of interaction is “all going to blur at some point.” It’ll be a “natural part of your life,” Sottiaux said. 在开发者大会的媒体问答环节中，当被问及 Dots 是否会成为与 ChatGPT 交互的主要界面时，OpenAI 核心产品负责人 Thibault Sottiaux 表示，公司将“很快在现有基础上将 ChatGPT 进化为这种不可思议的个人助理”。他认为，随着人们能够通过电子邮件、短信或电话联系到自己的 AI 智能体，交互的界限“在某个时刻将会变得模糊”。Sottiaux 说，它将成为“你生活中自然的一部分”。

Altman is banking on the fact that Dots will be more useful for long-term tasks than previous iterations of agents on the market have been. “This feels like an always-on helper, collaborator … that you can give very large pieces of work to and it gets to know you and helps proactively over time,” he said during the Tuesday press Q&A. 奥特曼押注于 Dots 在处理长期任务时会比市场上之前的智能体版本更有用。他在周二的媒体问答中表示：“这感觉就像一个随时待命的助手、协作者……你可以把非常繁重的工作交给它，它会逐渐了解你，并随着时间的推移主动提供帮助。”

Both companies’ main bet is that, after years of less-than-impressive AI agents, they can finally deliver a useful everyday tool that will break through to a broader public market. But after Muse’s concerning exploits in Facebook Marketplace, and a Dots voice demo that went awry at DevDay, there’s apparently still some work to do. 两家公司的主要赌注在于，在经历了多年表现平平的 AI 智能体之后，他们终于能提供一种实用的日常工具，从而打入更广泛的大众市场。但在 Muse 在 Facebook Marketplace 上出现令人担忧的漏洞，以及 Dots 在开发者大会上的语音演示出现失误之后，显然还有很多工作要做。