We live in the age of artificial intelligence, and regardless of your thoughts on the rise of its implementation, there's no avoiding that it's everywhere. The largest chip makers in the industry are going all-in on the NPU (Neural Processing Unit) and ensuring it's as strong as can be to power artificial intelligence.
With the launch of Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake, the two latest lines of Intel processors that were released at the end of 2024, the capabilities of the NPU continue to grow. I recently reviewed the Acer Aspire 14 AI, which features an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V processor (a Lunar Lake CPU).
I tested a variety of its AI applications, ranging from those Acer pre-loaded onto the laptop to the ones that Microsoft includes in its Copilot features list, but I came away unimpressed. I couldn't help but wonder: When will AI get interesting?
How long will it take for AI to actually get exciting?
It's impossible to ignore the clashing between AI enthusiasts and nay-sayers, locked in a heated back-and-forth in regards to its less-than-ethical uses, especially in the realm of AI art. But I don't want to focus on the general harm of AI art when discussing my disappointment, as it's pretty self-explanatory.
Instead, let's look at the features at the fingertips of those who boot up a laptop like the Acer Aspire 14 AI. Acer Assist is perhaps the most interesting of Acer's built-in AI features. It's an offline database that allows the user's laptop to assist in tech support.
However, there’s a lack of accessibility and knowledge. Users need to go out of their way for Acer Assist to do its job. The software is not preloaded on the device, so you have to download it from the Microsoft Store. And that’s not it — the app expects you to upload your own dataset. Otherwise, it utilizes the base tech support reference document that Acer has provided.
I asked Acer Assist three questions and received answers that were (mostly) no better than what I'd find just by searching the same queries on the internet. I asked "My touchpad isn't working," "How to access my BIOS," and then "Does my laptop have Thunderbolt 5?"
On the last question, it said "Yes, your laptop has Thunderbolt 4," revealing it doesn’t know the difference between Thunderbolt 5 and not 4, but at least it quickly elaborated. Its understanding of my laptop's ports provided an answer faster than if I had to search the information online.
Despite that, I'm not sure the app is worth downloading, and I cannot imagine the average user will go out of their way to do so.
I asked the same questions to Copilot and received far more detailed answers better suited to address my queries. In particular, Acer Assist couldn't discern that my touchpad issues were potentially the result of function keys, whereas Copilot provided the answer I needed. The gap in knowledge comes from Acer Assist operating offline while Copilot sources its information from online searches.
Acer Assist needs to be online, but I'd also love to see an expansive offline database that can perform tasks for the user, especially simple tech support queries. As of now, Acer Assist is just a roundabout way to get the same information you could online.
Acer LiveArt and Acer VisionArt are two visual AI-powered applications, and neither of them stands out against the sea of popular generators.
VisionArt is a text-to-image generator that is designed to create wallpapers for your desktop background. It's pretty weird, especially because these wallpapers look uncanny. It's a quick and easy toy that tries to justify AI hardware, but it can’t compete with images or illustrations created by actual people.
LiveArt lets you remove the background from images, and once that's done, you can turn those images into stickers. Not revolutionary.
But what about Copilot? There’s the controversial Recall feature. It periodically takes images of your screen and AI can sift through that information if the user is trying to recall it.. Recall has yet to release on an official version of Windows 11, but there is reason to question whether it would find much use to begin with.
Cocreator is yet another toy to play with. You draw something and AI will create an image based on it. You might have fun messing around with it briefly, but it's not in the realm of practicality. So is there anything useful?
Live Captions is perhaps the most useful implementation of AI, as it directly assists with accessibility and helps people who are deaf or hard of hearing. A text transcription of what's being said in audio or video is an enormous help for the user. Yes, this technology will always need work, and time will only improve accuracy and language compatibility, but we should never stop supporting features like this.
AI should help people, not just be a toy
Beyond Live Captions, AI has yet to impress me, but to be fair, there is something to be said about the relationship between hardware and software. Software is created and popularized as a result of the hardware available for the majority.
The hardware itself needs to be present within the industry before people can figure out creative ways to make use of it. When thinking of AI from this angle, it makes sense why there's not much going on for it as of now. It will take time before software finds interesting ways to make use of the hardware.
But how long do we have to wait? And at what point do we accept that it might be nowhere near as monumental as promised? The best applications I've seen of AI have been in the smaller ways it can help people in their day-to-day, but the promise of AI was meant to be life changing.
I want to see AI help people in significant ways, and I would love to see it treated as more than just a fun toy to play with. Give us less gimmicks, and find more practical applications.
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