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Your clock might merely show that it’s 4:09. Or your clock might seize your arm like a Parisian poet strolling alongside the Rhine, and extol the virtues of time: “4-oh-nine, a cosmic sight, / Stellar symphony, shining vivid.”
That’s the premise of Poem/1, a brand new AI-powered clock that shows each minute of the day as a unique poem.
“Because the clock’s fingers spiral, they gently chime / 4 ten whispers, within the river of time.”
Priced at $150 on Kickstarter today, Poem/1 was developed by Matt Webb’s one-man studio Acts Not Facts together with the economic design agency Approach. With an e-paper show and Wi-Fi, the clock presents the time as one thing of a endless sonnet.
[Image: Acts Not Facts]
In a earlier life, Webb ran a London {hardware} studio referred to as Berg. His agency’s tasks, like The Little Printer (an lovely machine that printed the information for you on receipt paper), tried to reconcile the connection between digital info and bodily area.
Practically a decade later, the whole Web of Issues because it was imagined was a transparent techno-exaggeration. (Each salt shaker was not meant to hook up with the web, just because Wi-Fi chips and different sensors obtained low cost!) However with the rise of LLMs and other new AI models, Webb sees a most sure new lane for merchandise. Whereas the present {hardware} craze is all about constructing the one AI companion on your life, Webb imagines {that a} sprinkling of AI will make numerous objects only a bit smarter. You may see it as a second coming for IoT, however with much less of a deal with an enormous community of home equipment than being surrounded by discrete objects able to considering only a tiny bit for themselves.
“We’ll be in a world the place we have now intelligence in every thing, and we’ll work together with it in small, and maybe frivolous, methods. There’s slightly glimpse of this [in the clock],” says Webb. “Possibly that is what our AI future can be like: embedded AI, which brings the world to life in small quantities, however doesn’t really feel like one thing we have to converse to, or really feel like a system.”
[Image: Acts Not Facts]
Webb had by no means meant to construct a poem-writing clock. The mission was truly born out of extra generalized consumer work. He had constructed a mission atop an LLM, however you couldn’t simply inform that it had AI at its core. He needed a method to exhibit its AI capabilities to the consumer, so he designed a system inform the time in a poem. Shortly thereafter, Webb’s outdated e-ink clock caught his eye.
“I got here downstairs one morning and thought, ‘perhaps I ought to wire these two issues collectively,” says Webb. “I did that and I couldn’t cease laughing. This factor was so bizarre, and it often lies concerning the time with the intention to make the [poem] work. It was like, I’ve to have this on my shelf.”
Webb constructed a proof of idea in 2023, after which—like many companies working on AI right now—jumped again into {hardware} manufacturing. (Sure, it nonetheless lies concerning the time typically. And, sure, Webb nonetheless sees that as a part of its unusual attraction.)
[Image: Acts Not Facts]
To commercialize the system, Webb needed to rethink its backend. Initially, he imagined each clock may write its personal poem every minute, however each AI question prices one thing, and each the vitality and monetary prices felt irresponsibly excessive to Webb. So now, a central server writes a poem for all Poem/1 items, which implies Webb has given up on a few of his early ideas about customization (don’t anticipate a poem concerning the climate for the reason that Poem/1 wants to write down poems for a lot of areas.)
The clock runs on ChatGPT 3.5—a choice Webb made for its affordability. “The poems [on ChatGPT 4) are better, but it costs five times as much. So I don’t use it,” says Webb. “You get more $10 words, but you pay for them. Literary quality has a price attached as it turns out!”
As a result, Webb has put more efforts into prompt engineering, or asking the system to write a good poem with perfectly formed questions. He knows that as these models evolve, he’ll need to update his prompts. “The latest models tend to mention fireflies a lot in the evening; it’s a bit obsessed with certain rhymes over others,” says Webb. “So part of my role is to be a ‘prompt whisperer,’ to keep it mixed up without over-determining the poems.”
Webb also promises that the technically inclined will be able to set the Poem/1 to their own server, so anyone can customize their own AI text if they’re willing.
The physical clock is simple but thoughtful. Webb designed it to have a chunky heft, to discourage people from grabbing it off the shelf like a phone. A slight taper helps it balance upright, while cable management in the back allows it to be hung. Meanwhile, if the typeface isn’t your favorite, you can actually customize the display between a few serif and sans serif options.
Much like the Rabbit R1 AI walkie-talkie, Poem/1 won’t charge a subscription fee to use it—which is complicated, given the fact that the hardware sells once while its AI backend requires an ongoing spend. To resolve this cost, Webb promises he’s budgeting a fund simply to run the AI, and he’s built three years of runway for this initiative into the business model.
“My bet is AI will drop in price enough at that time to keep it going indefinitely,” says Webb.
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