I’m now on my fourth day of MWC, and I’ve heard the term “AI” so much that I’m going to mutter it in my sleep. One thing is clear though: developers are determined to make this technology part of our future.
Deutsche Telekom was one of the brands that went to great lengths this year, presenting a concept phone running purely on generative AI, without any apps. This model was developed in partnership with Qualcomm and Brain.ai.
Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges strongly supports this idea: “I can tell you that in 5 to 10 years, none of us will use apps anymore” to Reuters.
Confused? Let me explain.
The idea is that the phone would use LLM (Large Language Models) to reduce many of the steps needed to perform an action. For example, if you want to book a flight to a soccer match abroad on your phone, you would normally open an app or web browser, search for the location and time, then filter airlines to find what suits you. agrees.
This conceptual model (which runs on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip) showed someone asking on the phone to book a flight using natural language, such as “Book me a flight to the quarterfinals.” It would do this whole process on the home interface, filtering to find the best option. Additional voice prompts could then refine the results even further.
Hannah Cowton / Foundry
The company believes that this phone will not only work for shopping. The official press release states that it can also be used to send messages, edit photos and watch videos. In a nutshell, it’s like using Siri or Google Assistant, but without using additional apps. The interface appears to be based on Brain.ai’s Natural iOS app.
It sounds simple when you put it like that, but I’m already anticipating a lot of hiccups here.
Privacy is the biggest concern. Online banking apps have secure encryption, so you have peace of mind knowing your data is safe. How could a phone without individual apps do the same thing? Similar sentiments can be applied to things like WhatsApp, which offers end-to-end encryption as standard.
Using your voice to control everything isn’t really private either. I, for one, wouldn’t want to blurt out sensitive information on the bus where all the curious strangers can hear it. And maybe it’s just the writer in me, but I prefer typing to using voice commands.
Then there’s social media, an entire business built on experiences that vary wildly based on user interests: TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and even LinkedIn (yes, the influencers for this platform exist, and if you don’t know them not, that’s probably a good thing). thing).
It’s not entirely clear how this side of the internet would work on a phone without an app. Would you be able to use voice commands to post to platforms anyway, or is there a world where these platforms don’t exist at all, or there is only one place for all activities ?
In a way, it feels like happiness. But when social lives and entire careers rely on many of these platforms, it seems like a radical move.
The same goes for everyone who works in app development. Are we moving towards a world where these jobs will be completely superfluous? If so, we’re talking about huge consequences for millions of people around the world. I just don’t see that happening, especially when software and apps dictate many people’s decisions about which smartphones to buy in the first place.
Gen AI is of course already here on smartphones. Both Qualcomm and MediaTek had handsets with generative AI software built into the device. Below is an example of a Snapdragon phone using Fast Stable Diffusion to generate an image in just seconds, all without relying on the Internet cloud:
Hannah Cowton / Foundry
On-device AI is more secure than those that use the cloud to generate information, and it’s great for asking for a stupid photo of a cat eating pizza. But a phone without an app would surely depend on connection to the online sphere to perform transactional tasks, which raises alarm bells.
In the race to become the leader in AI, companies are bypassing many important factors. OpenAI is being sued by the New York Times for copyright infringement in training ChatGPT bots, while ElevenLabs technology is being used to create voice replicas of President Biden to spread misinformation ahead of the US election (according to Bloomberg).
It’s fascinating to see what could be possible, but privacy and security should always be the top priority when thinking about our technological future. We’re already in troubled waters with AI, and I don’t see how a phone without an app could help solve these problems or enrich my daily life.
