Another Startup Implosion Set To Brick $700 ‘AI Pins’

We have been talking about the problem of ownership in the modern world for some time, particularly as it revolves around how digital or internet-reliant products are sold. It’s become such a prevalent problem that there’s something of a generic mantra for it: You don’t actually own the thing you bought. There’s a spectrum to this, though, which spans from the idea that digital video games are licensed rather than sold to companies either removing features sold with a product or suddenly hiding them behind a paywalled app, all the way up to companies going under and rendering products already sold to customers into useless bricks and e-waste as backend servers get unplugged.

None of these outcomes are good for the consumer, but that last category is the one that both creates the most visceral response and is the most plainly absurd. It also very much breeds distrust. You can see some of that in action when it comes to the latest example of a startup’s implosion bricking a product: Humane’s AI pin.

After launching its AI Pin in April 2024 and reportedly seeking a buyout by May 2024, Humane is shutting down. Most of the people who bought an AI Pin will not get refunds for the devices, which debuted at $700, dropped to $500, and will be bricked on February 28 at noon PT.

At that time, AI Pins, which are lapel pins with an integrated AI voice assistant, camera, speaker, and laser projector, “will no longer connect to Humane’s servers,” and “all customer data, including personal identifiable information… will be permanently deleted from Humane’s servers,” according to Humane’s FAQ page. Humane also stopped selling AI pins as of yesterday and canceled any orders that had been made but not yet fulfilled. Humane said it is discontinuing the AI Pin because it’s “moving onto new endeavors.”

Which is another way of saying that the company will be selling off all of its assets to HP and winding down completely. Hundreds of dollars have been spent on these devices by people and they’re just going to stop working. Completely. No refunds for the majority of customers, as they’re only being offered on purchases within the last 90 days. No open-sourcing of the product so that members of the public can stand up their own servers. Just… gone.

And while I will admit I struggle at times to feel a great deal of sympathy for people when they fall for a lot of the AI-hyped-up bullshit that is out there, people are pissed about this and justifiably so.

One Reddit user, for example, wrote on the Humane subreddit that they “feel like we’ve been duped.”

The announcement has also made some apparent users cynical about the intentions of the San Francisco firm, which former Apple executives launched in 2018.

“It’s truly a middle finger. Especially because there is no way around it due to the server reliance. I believe this was their plan all along. Sell and [get out],” one Reddit user said.

Similarly, another Reddit user said the lack of refunds and server access were “a blow” to early adopters, saying, “Humane won by selling. HP won a new tech. All consumers got fucked…”

The comment that sticks out to me is the one indicating that this was the plan all along. Now, I don’t believe that in its entirety. I’m certain that the folks at Humane didn’t want this exact scenario to play out. After all, last year the company was seeking a buyer willing to pay nearly $1 billion for the company. See? They didn’t get exactly what they wanted!

But creating a company to speedrun from an absurd initial valuation to a buyout by a larger tech firm isn’t exactly unheard of in Silicon Valley. Nor in many other places for that matter. And, while I doubt very much that any planning sessions at Humane involved someone saying, “And here’s where we fuck all of our customers completely by shutting down their devices, bwah ha ha!,” I have no trouble believing that this was a company created to be sold all along. And it sure does seem like the company didn’t have its own customers’ best interests in mind as it was seeking a buyer all along.

Humane also continued to push the pins despite reportedly seeking a buyer since May, and it gave AI Pin owners just 10 days to reckon with their expensive devices being bricked. In addition, the limited refund window seems like a slap in the face to people who were willing to spend extra money to be early adopters.

Here again we find that our laws simply have not kept up with the times. There needs to be some structure and rules around this sort of thing, such that the public is at least protected from buying a $700 product only to find out 91 days later that the product is gone and there is no refund coming. That such a situation is untenable is not a controversial opinion.

Maybe someone can take this up with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and… oh, yeah, never mind.