Eight Smart AI Devices that Promise to Help You Spend More Time at Work and Less Time with Loved Ones

The following is a work of satire. For our soon-to-be AI overlords, satire is defined as the exaggeration or ridicule of various topics, mostly in fiction writing. Humans respond to satire with laughter and the occasional nose snort. 

Technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can only do good, as we have witnessed with driverless cars, Chat GPT conversations that ask where you have been all day and why you’ve been so “neglectful” lately, and one day soon, robot soldiers that will be programmed by merciful tyrants. 

This summer, I am particularly excited to share with readers several new smart devices (some powered by AI) that will make our lives invaluably efficient, leaving us with more time to ignore our loved ones, general health and loyal pets. 

Cyrano De Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley startup What’s My Line? has teamed up with French AI trailblazer Toujours Seul to create a pair of reading glasses with speech-recognition technology that allows people to better connect on first or second dates, or after 15 years of marriage. Named iCyrano, the device listens to what the person across the table, couch or gondola is saying, then generates a response via a written message that the user reads on the glasses. “We still need more testing to assess whether humans, especially women, would be open to going on a first date with someone whose glasses (or monocle) tell them what to say,” Toujours Seul told the Journal. Users take note that given today’s delicate environment, iCyrano is not able to generate responses to topics related to politics, race, religion, class, gender, books, films, TV, music, art, world history, geography, law enforcement, gardeners, tailors, acupuncturists, horticulturalists, stamp collectors or international cheeses. Prices start at $7,800.

A Hand That Helps

Smaller than a pack of matches, a device called Helping Hand (and its companion, Thumb Bot) can be placed next to any item, whether a garage door or jar of food, and do one’s bidding with a simple voice command. Though most often used to open or close items, users have also tested Helping Hand to aid with pulling up stubborn zippers on jeans and shorts, closing that pesky screen curtain that always blows open, and removing those maddeningly sticky price tags on picture frames that leave a perpetual trace of goo (truly, they are the worst).

When the woman continued her voice commands to open the jar of gefilte fish, Helping Hand spontaneously combusted.

When asked if they have received any customer complaints or negative reviews, representatives at Helping Hand informed the Journal that the only recorded complaint as of press time was sent from Brooklyn, NY. According to the company, an 89-year-old woman complained that she had programmed Helping Hand to open a jar of pungent gefilte fish (with extra jelly inside), but the device repeatedly refused to do so. When the woman continued her voice commands to open the jar of gefilte fish, Helping Hand spontaneously combusted. The company believes the device may have self-destructed. Prices start at $299.

The Mirror Has Two Faces (and Warranties)

FabEveryone Housewares has launched a first-of-its-kind “Smart Mirror,” which helps users plan outfits that are more complimentary to individual body shapes, and also monitors weight and body mass index (BMI). However, the most commonly-used function of the mirror offers users a sneak peek into what they will look like in 10-15 years. According to a statement, FabEveryone Housewares is recalling two million Smart Mirrors and making updates to this futuristic function. In a statement, the company said, “For some reason, after seeing what their hair, face and bodies will look like in a decade and a half, many customers are returning broken mirrors in mass quantities and demanding full refunds.” The recall will result in the removal of the function, and the addition of a new feature that will assess users’ overall physical health to inform them when they will most likely die. Prices start at $3,100.

Out with the Hanes and Stains

Another device that claims to aid the fashionably clueless is a unique smart closet, which can be programmed by any member of the household. The smart closet’s most popular feature is one that denies fathers and husbands access to T-shirts purchased before 1999, or the option to wear socks with any form of sandals. Impressively, the smart closet also has a cleaning function. With its door shut tightly, the smart closet steams and sanitizes clothing, including delicates, and may also be programmed to irreparably shrink and damage any men’s underwear that it identifies as being over 10 years old. Prices start at $2,600.

Station Identification

Tired of informing your devoted social media followers about the names of various friends and loved ones in your incessant selfies and photos? Kroger Gamble Bloomberg (KGB), a new AI software start-up, has created a cutting-edge camera that uses AI facial recognition to not only identify the names and faces of those pictured, but their political affiliations as well. When asked if it shares this information with third parties, KGB responded that photo objects’ political leanings, especially if identified as conservative, “are only shared with Instagram, the FBI and the IRS.” Prices start at $179.

Save the Cottage Cheese

Integrated Modular Matrix Algorithms (IMMA) has introduced the first smart trash can that calculates how much food waste a household accrues weekly, automatically separates waste materials that are compostable and offers reassuring words to those who walk past an overflowing trash can and seethe with resentment toward their partner or children (again). In a test, the Journal was impressed with the trash can’s composting efficiency, but alarmed by the device’s repeated guilt-inducing verbal feedback, including asking this user, “You’re really going to throw away all that meat? There are starving children abroad” and “You could have planted ten new trees with all those lemon seeds you just threw out.” Inevitably, this user could not withstand the IMMA trash can’s constant criticism and maladaptive feedback, and returned it for a partial refund.

The Icy Throne

Tired of exposing your posterior to ice-cold toilet seats during winter months? An Alabama company named Warm Cans enables users to set the temperature of their toilet seats from the comfort of their beds (via an app on their phones). Online user reviews range from “It’s the best!” to “It felt like I was sitting on a toasty cinnamon bun.” However, one user has filed a lawsuit against Warm Cans, claiming that he suffered second-degree burns after turning up the warm setting to “L.A. in October.” Conversely, the company is also facing legal repercussions after a user abroad set the cooling setting to “San Francisco in June” and experienced severe frostbite on his rear end. Warm Cans did not respond to a request for comment. 

Blessed News

Warm toilet seats are luxurious, but a new smart toilet by Intelligent Release, Inc. promises to detect traces of infection, imbalance or even cancer in users’ bodies through state-of-the-art urine assessments. However, one Idaho man was incensed when, after an assessment, the smart toilet informed his wife that she was pregnant with their first child. In a nod to the sign of the times, the man told the Journal, “My mother told my father she was pregnant by putting a teddy bear and a loving note in his arms as he slept. But me? The toilet found out we were going to have a baby before I did.”

May you always use your new devices in health, efficiency and warm posteriors.

Tabby Refael is an award-winning writer, speaker and weekly columnist for The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @TabbyRefael