YouTuber Marques Brownlee has come under fire for his review of the Humane AI Pin which people described as “unethical”.
Brownlee, also known as MKBHD, is a highly influential technology reviewer with over 18 million subscribers on YouTube, and yesterday he posted his review of the hugely popular AI pin which he titled “The worst product I've ever reviewed…for now “. ”
The 25-minute review is an in-depth look at the revolutionary device that Brownlee says the pin is “bad at basically everything it does all the time.” The video's title was also subject to criticism.
“I find it distasteful, almost unethical, to say that when you have 18 million subscribers.” Daniel Vassallo writes On X (formerly Twitter).
“It's hard to explain why, but with great reach comes great responsibility. The prospect of killing someone else's startup reeks of negligence. First, no harm, no foul.”
“We disagree about what my job is,” Brownlee replied.
Another X user, Stanley Ezina, also questions whether Brownlee's review is ethical.
“What is the line between review and defamation?” he is writing. “Marquis Brownlee is hugely influential, and his reviews mean a lot.”
Others drew comparisons with Brownlee's review of the EV Fisker, which he called “the worst car I've ever reviewed.”
Marquis Brownlee single-handedly destroys startups pic.twitter.com/MIaCkDbCc3
– Wordsmith (@OlePundit) April 16, 2024
If I had the money, I'd be creating startups inventing increasingly stupid tech products and sending them to Marquis Brownlee to review so I could entice him into having a “Okay, now this is seriously the worst product I've ever reviewed, it can't get any worse” video and sending him something worst
– Derek Jay (@dieworkwear) April 15, 2024
However, many at X defended Brownlee. “It's a really terrible product” User writes Stuart called. “It doesn't matter if the technology is early. It's praised for the build quality but that doesn't matter if it's a bad product. In the end, we need honest reviews.”
Brownlee wasn't the only reviewer to give the AI pin a bad rating
the edge Describe AI Pin as “an interesting idea that is completely incomplete and completely broken is in many ways unacceptable.”
The main complaints from reviewers are that the device simply doesn't work. After screen stealing, the pin is used mostly via voice (it also has a laser projection system), and as anyone who's ever had a frustrating conversation with Siri or Alexa knows, they often don't cooperate.
The book laments that the pinhead took so long to respond when asked to do something. The pin has a camera with a vision feature which means the lens can analyze what is in front of it but reviewers reported that most of the time the pin did not respond or said the wrong answer.
Image credits: Header portrait by Marquis Brownlee.
“Web specialist. Lifelong zombie maven. Coffee ninja. Hipster-friendly analyst.”
