Invisible Machines: Critical Reflections on Wearable AI

Studies have found that children can ask up to 107 questions per hour.

As a parent, I have first hand-experience of this.

While researching this post, I found a monograph on children’s questions and cognitive development. The below quote stuck out:

“Together, the results of these four studies support the existence of the IRM (Information Requesting Mechanism) as a way for children to learn about the world. Children ask information-seeking questions that are related in topic and structure to their cognitive development. Parents give answers to these questions, but when they do not, the children persist in asking for the information, suggesting that the goal of this behavior is to recruit needed information. The content of these questions shifts within exchanges and over the course of development in ways that reflect concept building. Finally, children generate questions efficiently in order to gather needed information, and then are able to use this information productively; they tap into their existing conceptual knowledge in order to do this.”


In the past, I have attempted to answer these questions as best as I can, while also acknowledging that some (like, why is water wet?) were far beyond my capabilities. In those cases, I’d have to think about it, give an explanation of why I don’t know, and then do my best to find out as soon as possible.

Sometime, somewhere, that information might have been taught to me in school. But as I grew older, it’s probably been replaced by knowledge about heat pump versus condenser tumble dryers, or which variety of coffee bean has the highest caffiene content.

So, I’ve decided that in order to stress-test and explore my wearable AI, while sticking to my rules (Rule #3, ask as many questions as you can), I will try to be childlike in my inquisitiveness, and ask some difficult childlike questions about the world, things that I often take for granted or treat as uninteresting or unnecessary. I also decided to ask these questions at inopportune, out-and-about moments.

Interim results are positive; the glasses have been enlightening on where pencils come from, why chickens lay eggs, and whether four-leaf clovers really exist (they do).

That is great – useful, and interesting.

If we are asking, “can wearable AI help us learn in a wider range of spaces and contexts” then for factual information or explanations, I think the answer is probably “yes”.

On the other hand, if we are asking “can wearable AI help us to think” then the answer is less clear.

Factual recall is something that AI models are somewhat good at (although they might occasionally create total fiction and there’s no way of knowing when). In the cases above the AI gave me pretty good, factually correct answers.

So I received the facts that I needed, in a pleasant, patient, if somewhat slightly robotic way, and I accessed these answers hands-free, while out in the environment and not sitting at a screen. This is promising.

On the other hand, if I had tried to find the answers to these questions myself, then the journey would have been slightly different. I would have had to at the very least, open my phone, search for the information, filter different sources, perhaps stumble on some incidentally relevant information, and potentially evaluate several different answers. Who knows what incidental learning I deprived myself of by deferring straight to the AI answer?

In short, the wearable AI gave me the right answers, but shortcutted the journey of getting them.

I would argue that this shortcutting is even more pronounced when using a wearable model that is ironically right next to your brain, because it is there, ready to answer, with minimal friction, at all times. It requires no physical activation, and this is a profoundly different experience to typing into a user interface, or even dictating to a handheld object.

Thinking back to kids’ inquistitiveness, when children ask questions, I also don’t think it’s just about seeking a totally factual, sensible and rational answer. Yes, it is important to know these things but it’s also important to think around what a subject is, and why it matters.

More than that, it’s a chance to stretch an idea until it breaks, instead of resolving the answer matter-of-factly and calling it a day. This tells me that there are big questions about whether AI supports ‘thinking’ or erodes it.

Accessing the AI for immediate answers also collapses the space and time between identifying a knowledge gap and closing that gap. In the past, that space was larger, giving more time to think, speculate, or hypothesize. When that space is instantly accessible via speech, at any time, without the physical need to access a device, the gap narrows even further.

When I ask these questions, I am out – in the physical world. I am not multi-tabbing. This is an important point, because it means I am more likely to accept the information rather than triangulate it with other sources. If the information is uncertain, I might be more likely (at a laptop) to open another tab and conduct a separate search. If I am walking, or have my hands full, or I’m chopping a watermelon and suddenly want to know how long a watermelon takes to grow, then I am probably going to take it at its word.

Taking this further, if I find the answer on the internet, I can return to that source and evaluate it, perhaps understand why the information has been presented in a certain way, or consider where the source came from itself. With the AI, the answer is generated instantly on the fly, and we have no information on where it came from really, other than ‘training data’. On the computer interface, newer models can point to links and source material – but wearable AI cannot.

This is one way that I can already tell that wearing AI might change the way that we access information.

We need to consider not just the answers that wearable AI provides us with, but the temporal and contextual nature of when we ask questions and what effects that might have.

Human in the loop means having a ‘person’ involved in an AI system, checking the content, validating what’s being designated as corrected. It occurred to me that I am about to enter into this loop. I will no longer be walking around a lone bag of biological material, but I will have a silicon companion at all times.

These glasses will be capable, in theory, of observing and recording my entire life (battery permitting) and they are quite literally, a physical barrier between me and the outside world. My experience of the world, for the next three months will be mediated by these lenses, the technology that is carried inside them, and their constant connection to my phone. Wherever I look, a photo or video can capture my world view, and I can connect to an AI model which will tell me about what I’m seeing, in its own words. 

These weren’t cheap, but I hope they’re worth it.

I keep thinking about looking in a shopping magazine (Argos, if you know it) when I was about eight or nine and seeing the Nokia 3210. It looked like something from the future, and I remember it cost well over £100 – which for that time was a lot. These glasses ran me a little over £450 with prescription lenses, and that was the cheapest option. I didn’t even get the transparent orange colourway or the transitions for strong sunlight.

I’d ordered from a third party seller online, uploaded my prescription ad they came the next day. I was surprised by the old-school leather case that they came in – a nod to the traditioal Ray-Ban aesthetic. Interestingly, it was very hard, despite being brown leather and soft by appearance. This is due to the charging infrastructure at the bottom.

When I opened it, the button started to glow orange. Then after I’d plugged them in, blue. In a brief moment of YouTuber fantasy role play, I decided to take a video.

If you look closely and squint, and have only had 3 hours sleep, it looks a bit like it’s saying ‘hello’.

The first thing you notice is the noise. A wake-up sound rings in your ear when you put them on. The sound seems to be all around you – not inside your ear like with a headphone. It’s jarring because the sound reminds you of what happens when you start up a computer, or turn on the TV. But nothing seems to have changed – you have no visible screen, and no indication that you’re wearing a live, functioning computer. I can’t see that they’re working, I can only hear them.

The second thing is the weight. They’re heavier than normal glasses – but not by much. I’ve had non-AI glasses that I felt have weighed more. They’re every so slightly chunkier than a normal pair of thick, black-framed glasses, but not enough that it would be easy to notice.

After the new glasses headache wore off, I started experimenting with the AI. To activate it, you have to say ‘Hey Meta’. This is frustrating because you can’t give it a name of your choosing. One of the first things I’d considered was what I’d call my companion – Jarvis, Clank, Kryten, C3P0, and a few others had all briefly crossed my mind. This is a big disappointment, but also strangely telling – I want to make the AI assistant ‘mine’.

The second teething problem I noticed was the voice. Maybe it was because I’d decided to run the battery into the ground and the hardware couldn’t keep up, but the voice flitted from masculine to feminine, varied in pitch, pace, and tone. A couple of times it shifted into Judi Dench, then John Cena (two of the celebrity voice options available). I started to feel like I was sitting in a room with several different robots, some of whom sounded keen and enthusiastic to help, others who sounded weary and like I was wasting their time.

After I’d done about 50 queries, I started to look at the physical features. There is a small LED in the side, which changes colour. A thick, solid on/off button in silver on the side of the frame which clicks satisfyingly. There is a photo/video button on top of the arm on the right hand side. What I thought were two cameras, right next to the lenses and pointing wherever I look, is actually one camera, and an LED light.

The LED light comes on when you take a photo or video. I didn’t think much of this at first, but the more I’ve considered it, or ‘sat with it’ (as Claude or ChatGPT will tell you to do), this is a bit weird. It’s like they realised that the major use case for consumers is to covertly photo or video other places and people, and put in a feature to head this off. But, it’s a feature that you can adjust the light brightness on in the app. It’s also a feature that you can’t see very well in bright sunlight. You have to ask yourself, did they have a conversation about this in the product design?

Add an LED for recording and photos. But make it subtle and hard to see. Also, you can cover it.

I’m sure a bright red, always on LED would be possible. More on this privacy aspect later though.

Once I’d set up the app, done as much customisation and settings work as I felt I could stomach, I went on with my day. I was in a bathroom and noticed a mirror and thought, well I’d better take an action shot of myself wearing it.

Then, I asked the AI to make it look better.

To its credit, it seems to have tried hard. My jumper changed to a presumably more neutral tone, and the white bathroom background benefited from the addition of a 1978 Ford Capri in lemon yellow. My hands had also been made bigger, so I wasn’t pressing the camera button. Who says AI isn’t creative?

I decided to push it further – what happens if I iterate a second time with a very basic prompt to improve the image? (my AI prompting skills are decidedly basic, I use the minimum words possible).

This time, it went a step further.

I wish I was making this up.

I definitely did not say “turn me into a sick motorbike, with dirt still on the tyres after it screeched into a public bathroom for a photo.”

But I did ask it to make me look better, and so it’s a 10/10 for effort.

Later in the day things went from funny and interesting to a little darker. I started to think about some of the practicalities of this experiment.

How would I know they aren’t recording me or my life without me knowing it? Do I just trust when Meta says “Don’t worry, we won’t – trust the LED light”?

Can I be sure my stuff won’t be uploaded online somewhere?

I needed to do some research.

Until I’d fully worked out the answer to that question, should I take them off when I’m in the bathroom or getting dressed? Where is my boundary, and what is my justification for that boundary? How about audio? Will my content be used to send me ads?

Also, why did the Meta AI app choose to focus on cars and motorbikes when it edited that image?

Probably it’s just a coincidence, but I watch a lot of content online on bikes and cars. Especially vintage cars. Could it have known that? The first moments of AI-paranoia have started to seep in.

Luckily, I was able to put these questions on pause – battery dead.

I took glasses off, and plugged them into the USB port in my sofa, where I was charging my Ring doorbell.

I looked at the setup and wondered, if I could send a photo of my furniture charging my glasses and my doorbell back in time, what someone in the 1980s would have thought of it. Then I realised that I couldn’t send them a photo, because they didn’t have smartphones.

The final task while they were charging was to choose a name for the glasses, because this project is about werable AI as a whole, not a singular company.

So instead of ‘Hey Meta’, I decided that in the blog, I will simply call them glasses. Maybe AI is more creative than me.

Graham’s number is the name for a number so large that it cannot be represented in the observable universe. Apparently, Rayo’s number is even larger than this. Jasper’s number, which I invented just now, is the specific number of blogs a millenial has started and then given up on.

My Jasper’s number is 3 – but maybe this one will work out.

I’ve started writing this blog to document an experiment, which I’ve been brewing for a few years now.

In 2023, Meta (Facebook) released their first “Smart Glasses” and I was keen – glasses with an inbuilt AI assistant sounded incredible. The problem was, I didn’t really have the money. Or more specifically, I didn’t want to spend the money. They weren’t cheap, and I’d just got new glasses, after my old ones were knocked away by a rogue wave, moments after I’d said “don’t worry, the waves aren’t big enough to knock my glasses off.”

So I let the idea slide. Until now.

It’s early spring, 2026, in Durham, Northeast of England (not North Carolina). On a side note, I only learned when moving here about 16 months ago that the original Washington is just down the road. This is my second spring after a decade of living abroad in Southeast Asia, working as an academic.

I’m walking down a deserted nature reserve near my house.

Me: “So what do you think of this idea to write a blog about my experience with a wearable AI assistant?”

Friend: “That sounds like a killer topic — wearable AI is right there at the edge of sci-fi becoming real life. Let’s jam on this a bit and see where it could go:”

Me: “Sure, but wait a minute, let’s take a photo of this cherry blossom first”

The camera clicks

“I just took a photo for you…”

An elderly couple walks by with their labrador. I notice the side eyed look they’re giving me. Because (you probably guessed it) I’m not talking to somebody – I’m talking to something. And this thing is in my glasses.

No one’s real friends are that supportive of discussing their project ideas.

I’m wearing Meta Raybans. These are really the first mainstream glasses that have an AI built in. I can talk to them (almost) conversationally, ask questions, get it to take photos, play music, or generate and edit an image. It’s connected to my phone, and logs all of the interactions. All that I need to do is say ‘Hey Meta’, and then whatever I want to ask next.

I decided not to relay all of this information to the old couple and their dog. Instead, I stop my slow, thoughtful nodding and smile at them. I say good morning, and then the glasses reply ‘good morning’ back. I say ‘stop’. The old couple are noticeably confused, as to them it looks like I’ve just said good morning and then told them to stop, which is a bit off. At this point I decide the best thing to do is just keep walking.

Moments like these are the cost of my experiment. I have decided, for better or worse, to wear these things for 3 months. I’m a glasses wearer, so they are going to replace my daily frames. I have been able to order them with prescription lenses, and so apart from a very few select situations I will be wearing them all the time. They will be the first thing I put on in the morning, and the last thing I take off at night.

I’m going to be spending the next 3 months (or maybe longer, who knows) recording my experiences, reflections, and challenges using the glasses. This is really about exploration, and not just a product review. So just to be clear, I’m receiving no commission on these things, and I didn’t get my glasses  as a freebie from Meta. I’m not critiquing Meta specifically, and I’d prefer not to get my Facebook account banned. 

I’m interested not in what I can do with the technology, but what the technology does to me,  and what might this mean for life in the next few years. At the time of writing, it feels like we’re at the beginning of the wearable AI wave.

There have been a few false starts, and a few wearable AI’s that have tried and failed. The Humane Pin is the best example, and one that I’ll talk about in detail at some stage.

In the coming months, a lot more of these AI glasses will be on the market, with some of the big tech names (think Apple, Google, and Samsung) rumored to have pairs being released in the later half of this year. (While writing this post, Google even confirmed these are on the way).

Another reason I’m pursuing this angle of self-experimentation is because I can’t really think of a workable research project that could take place yet with other participants. I think in order to get an answer what AI can do when we wear it 24/7, and its attached to our face, a self-experiment is probably the simplest choice to start with.

To that end, and in the name of (social) science, I’m doing something called an autoethnographic approach.

This means quite literally, that I will be using my own experience as a data source. I will be considering my own experiences, reflections, narratives, and thoughts – looking at myself as a reflection of the culture, time, and place in which I’m living.

The more realistic summary is that I’m going to write down what happens when you wear AI on your face for 3 months. In order to make this go a bit more smoothly, I’ve come up with some ground rules.

Ground Rules

1. Wear the glasses every day, in every situation in which you would normally wear glasses. This one is easy, because if I don’t wear them I can’t really see anything.

2. Don’t hide the glasses, and don’t explain them away. Don’t tell people you’re wearing them unless its necessary, but let them notice by themselves. I don’t want it to be a defining feature of my interactions unless it becomes one naturally.

3. No half-measures. If you want to really experience what life is like with a wearable AI assistant, you have to lean into it. Use every feature, ask as many questions as you can, push the limits of the functionality. Record video, change voices, take pictures, run the battery into the ground every day. Use them.

4. Write every day. Even if it’s just to say you did nothing all day and didn’t interact with them at all. Just write something. 

5. Be ethical. Don’t photograph people without consent, keep interactions confidential.

These are the basics, but I’m sure some more rules of thumb will emerge. Keep them charged is probably a good one, too, and try not to ask anything that might get you in trouble. I don’t actually know who’s listening to these conversations.