Rabbit Inc a new AI startup, has introduced a small AI assistant computer called the R1 at this year’s CES 2024 costing approximately $199.
Created in collaboration with Teenage Engineering, the Swedish electronic company known for their synthesizer & sampler sequencer product (OP1), the new Rabbit R1 is not intended to replace smart phones, but act as a complementary device using voice interactions similar to Alexa and Siri.
Packed into a small size (approximately of a stacked set of post-its notes), the device aims to return responses faster than OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other modern LLM’s out there.
Instead of relying on a smartphone’s App, Jesse Lyu (Rabbit’s founder and CEO) says that you to just ask the R1 via a push-to-talk button and connect to a whole range of Apps and API’s through automated scripts called “rabbits”.
These scripts carry out new or learnt tasks independently via a simple interface, display and voiced by an assistant through Rabbit’s operating system, called Rabbit OS.
Rabbit’s trained model (known as Large Action Model or LAM) learns the “visual interface” of existing apps and API’s and learns how these work, such that it can play music from Spotify or order an Uber via voice command, essentially teaching the LAM model how an App works.
The LAM learns what an App’s UI looks like, and uses these learning’s to create shortcuts to simplify the interface and experience of the R1 using voice. Lyu says, that the LAM can be used and applied to any app anywhere.
Related links:
- Tech Radar – The Rabbit r1 is an AI-powered sidekick that’s like a future version of Siri (Jan 9, 2024)
- The Verge – The Rabbit R1 is an AI-powered gadget that can use your apps for you (Jan 9, 2024)
- Wired – Rabbit’s Little Walkie-Talkie Learns Tasks That Stump Siri and Alexa (Jan 9, 2024)