AI assistants: Project Astra demo

Dream coming true or nightmare scenario? Whatever your views on the galloping - and largely unrestricted - pace of artificial intelligence (AI) growth, it's hard to deny that there's some life-changing stuff going on. Google's annual I/O developers' conference has thrown up plenty of applications and developments across a huge range of everyday activity that will make little sense to most of us until we actually experience them in real life. Generative search, for example, looks set to disrupt existing monetisation models and change the face of how we access information. Setting aside the environmental burden and the ethical questions it all raises, this ad focuses on Project Astra, a tester for the multimodal foundation model. Gemini. What is that? Well, as described by the tech giant itself: "Gemini is designed to be your personal AI assistant — one that's conversational, intuitive and helpful. Whether you use it in the app or through the web experience, Gemini can help you tackle complex tasks, and it can take action on your behalf". In this particular demo, Google explains that: "There are two continuous takes: one with the prototype running on a Google Pixel phone and another on a prototype glasses device. The agent takes in a constant stream of audio and video input. It can reason about its environment in real time and interact with the tester in a conversation about what it is seeing". Which can all provoke reactions from horror to delight - most of them likely to lie somewhere in the middle ground. Yours?

Keywords: Project Astra demo, AI assistants, Gemini Google 2024, Google i/o 2024, developers, artificial intelligence, AI development