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Advait Paliwal
Advait Paliwal, an Indian-origin techie recently announced a wearable AI device called Iris, designed to provide users with "infinite memory.” As claimed by him this device will not only capture every moment of the user’s life but will also tell them what to focus on.
I built Iris, a wearable that gives you infinite memory of your life.
— Advait Paliwal (@advaitpaliwal) September 24, 2024
It takes a picture every minute, captions and organizes them into a timeline, and uses AI to help you remember forgotten details.
Iris also has a focus mode. It notices when you get distracted and proactively… pic.twitter.com/fQxzpBRmIA
He made the announcement on social media elaborating on the specific unique features of the device. Having done a Master of Science from Brown University, a private Ivy League university in the US, the techie had spent the summer working at Augmentation Lab, a transdisciplinary R&D lab in Cambridge. As a part of a two-month AI and hardware talent accelerator program in the lab, he built Iris which he claims captures life as you see it.
Features of Iris
The wearable AI device will store data locally on an SD card besides storing every detail in the Cloud. It has mainly 3 functions as declared by Paliwal.
1. It takes a picture every minute.
2. Captions and organizes them into a timeline.
And 3. It uses AI to help the user remember forgotten details.
Additionally, Iris also has a focus mode that notices when you get distracted and informs the user to get back on track.
Paliwal went on to say that he had presented the device to over 250 individuals at MIT Media Lab. Thanking Professor Pattie Maes for inspiring him with her work on cognitive augmentation he shared a photo of him wearing Iris as a necklace.
The young entrepreneur shared that the design of this marvelous device has been inspired by the evil eye symbol.
How Iris can transform the world
Paliwal claims Iris could offer safety and health benefits by aiding doctors in understanding patients' daily habits as well as ensuring workplace safety compliance.
In elderly care, the device would be immensely helpful to caregivers by monitoring patients without being intrusive.
Although Paliwal has expressed his confidence in his invention and also disclosed many people have already expressed their desires to get one for themselves the reactions to his announcement are mixed.
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A warning from the creator
“There are good and bad sides to this. On one hand, Iris could really help people with memory problems or help us stay focused on our goals. But it also raises concerns about privacy and how these recordings might be used,” Paliwal has warned.
Despite the possible privacy issues, he believes it is ultimately up to users to decide how to use the device. He referred to past attempts at similar technology, such as Google Clips, which faced detection challenges and was eventually dropped.
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Mixed responses from netizens
One individual replied to his post on X expressing discomfort with constant photo-taking, to which Paliwal responded, “people are constantly taking mental photos anyway.”
A LinkedIn user commented, “This is absolutely insane! As a kid, I always wondered of this and it’s genuinely so sick to see this executing irl.”