AI wearables are gaining popularity, but are they a violation of privacy?

The tech industry hopes you’ll consider making AI gadgets a regular wardrobe fixture.

Driving the news: Tech firms, startups, and entrepreneurs are launching a slew of wearable AI-powered devices, racing to be the first to bring AI to the consumer hardware market, per Axios.

Rounding out the AI wearables roster…

• Rewind.ai launched Pendant, a necklace that records your conversations and transfers them to your smartphone, creating an audio database (of sorts) for your life.
• Meta unveiled a pair of Ray-Ban smart glasses that include an AI chatbot that users can communicate with (which might make you look like you’re talking to yourself).
• Sam Altman-backed startup Humane teased its new AI pin at Paris Fashion Week— a screenless lapel device that projects a smartphone-like interface onto users’ hands.
• Microsoft filed a patent for an AI backpack that features GPS, voice command, and cameras that could… help us walk in the right direction?

Why it matters: AI wearables can offer health monitoring, enhanced accessibility, safety alerts, improved productivity, personalized experiences, learning assistance, social connectivity, and data insights — as well as just being a fun conversation starter (or recorder) when you’re out on the town — but they also raise privacy and ethical concerns.

What’s next: Wearables are just one part of the AI-hardware puzzle. Former lead Apple designer Jony Ive and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are reportedly developing a ChatGPT-powered consumer device, which could even one day rival the iPhone.

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