THIS WEEK IN AI: Tension at World AI Summit, Snapchat Glasses, Meta's Crisis

**Josh** (0:00)
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain. Well, today, there's a new version of that, which is you either exit Silicon Valley or spend enough time there for no one to tell you that these glasses look absolutely ridiculous. What we're showing on screen right now is the Snap Specs. This is the new version of Snapchat's hardware offering that is marketed as this spectacle of a device. It is this remarkably intriguing and compelling and innovative device that sits on your face, that has all these capabilities. But the reality is that, I mean, dude, these glasses on Evan Spiegel's face, the CEO of Snapchat, not only do they look ridiculous, but they cost $2,200.
I mean, what was he thinking? What was the company thinking? Who let this get released and how are they so confident as he's walking around the venue yesterday as they released these specs?

**Ejaaz** (0:49)
Listen, this is a serious show and I want to have a serious conversation about this, but this is ridiculous. Do you know when you buy sunglasses for a little child and they're like, mommy, can I wear your glasses, please? It just looks oversized and ridiculous on their head. This is what this looks like. I just want to point out for those of you who are looking at our stream right now, the back half of the actual glasses, the handles barely broach his ear. They sit on top of his ear.

**Josh** (1:18)
It's squishing his ear.

**Ejaaz** (1:19)
That's got to be so uncomfortable. Wait, and for those of you who say, oh, this is just an AI rendering, no, look at it. This is live in the mix of things. As he turns, you can see, they extend beyond the back of his head, so that it's oversized fit for him.

**Josh** (1:33)
Now, that dude's ears are fighting for their lives.

**Ejaaz** (1:35)
They're fighting for their lives. This is Snapchat, who hasn't really done anything major for the last 12 years. In fact, for the last 12 years, they've been investing a heck ton of money to the tune of $3.5 billion to figure out the AR glasses game. You had Meta that's released a bunch of models since then. You've got Apple that's released the Apple Vision 4 for $3,500.
And finally, Snap has released their flagship model. You would think after all that R&D, they've come out with something cheap, slick and aesthetic. And unfortunately, it's been the complete opposite. This is $2,200 to achieve or get these specs that you're seeing on your screen now. It's a standalone device. It has around 51 degrees field of vision, which is similar to Meta's Ray-Ban glasses. But of course, this thing is like 3x larger than anything that we've ever seen. You don't need to connect it to your phone, and basically it runs its own software operating system on the lens itself. Now, I have seen demos of what the software itself looks like, Josh. And believe it or not, it's not entirely the worst thing. You're seeing some on the screen here where someone's playing golf. You're seeing someone basically ordering off a menu in a language that they don't understand. You're seeing someone taking directions. You're seeing someone watching a movie on a plane. You're seeing someone design the architecture of a building. This all looks good, but these are all curated demos, just to be clear. I don't know whether it actually looks this good, but these demos are already better than Meta Ray-Ban glasses. But no one's going to buy these things, and it's such a shame because it looks terrible. You don't want to look like you're wearing old school 3D glasses, watching a movie that no one's even there to see. It's just so dumb.

**Josh** (3:11)
Well, forgive me for my PTSD, but I think I'm going to need to see it to believe it. These seem like a lot of structured demos that are not out in the wild. I give Meta a lot of credit when they released their glasses, their Meta Ray-Ban displays, I think they were called. I forget because no one actually bought them.
They did do some demos on stage and they just completely flopped and they failed. So I give them credit for trying. Snapchat, I don't think did that. This is mostly a curated view of demos.
The form factor, well said, there's some nice things to say about this thing. Like the fact that they're trying for one. I give them a lot of credit for actually trying for throwing their hat in the ring. It looks terrible, but the technology is on its way. You mentioned the 51-degree field of view that actually is an improvement.