This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
When I was 5 years old, I was obsessed with robots. I remember reading a French comic book about the year 2000 (which was 15 years away at that point) and drooling over the humanoid robots inside. There were cybernetic waitresses, butlers, dogs, birds, chess partners, and car mechanics.
Fast forward to the present day, almost 40 years later, and we still don't have these robot servants. What we have, though, is AI. And it's going to change everything. And because we're a media outlet writing about mobile tech, today I'm going to tell you how AI will kill smartphone innovation.
It's just like we've finally gotten our robots, but in a virtual way. And just like humans would eventually lose their skills if a cybernetic butler were about to take care of them, smartphones will lose the need to advance on the hardware front. Let's see how we're about to get to that outrageous conclusion.
A (not so) short intro to AI, algorithms, and machine learning
What is AI, exactly? That's actually a very difficult question to answer, and yet, every tech company out there is stamping their newly developed or copied systems with the AI badge. Here's the Wikipedia definition of intelligence:
"Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information and to retain it as knowledge to be applied to adaptive behaviors within an environment or context."
If we apply all those criteria to modern AI systems, we see that it's not intelligence we're talking about. None of these sophisticated language models can understand any information, let alone have the capacity for abstraction, self-awareness, or creativity. What these systems really are is a very good algorithm that can recognize patterns and imitate them, more or less.
Machine learning, on the other hand, is how these systems learn, put simply. They're fed an enormous amount of data, and thanks to their algorithms, these systems can make out patterns, label them, reproduce them, imitate them, and reconstruct them when asked.
The last phrase is key: "when asked." None of these systems, which proudly bear the AI stamp, will even do anything on their own. They all need to be programmed and prompted, and they can't "decide" to do things on their own volition. And this won't change anytime soon. So, as the song goes, "Come on, baby, don't fear the (AI) reaper."
So, why will these clever algorithms kill the smartphone as we know it?
Smartphone innovation has been terminally ill for years
It's tempting to focus on the past few years and say that things haven't been like that in the past and that smartphone innovation is now almost nonexistent. But the fact of the matter is that in the past 15 years or so, the changes from model to model have been very few and far between.
But okay, let's take the last two or three Galaxy S-series models for the purpose of this article. Below, you'll find a comparison table between the Galaxy S22, S23, and S24. They are almost the same! The newer models feature slightly bigger batteries, new chipsets, and brighter screens, and that's about it!
Now, the reasons behind this are complex, but now that AI is spreading through smartphone brands like a cybernetic COVID-24, things will get even worse. Here's why.
Smartphones as terminals and software as a service
Samsung has Galaxy AI, Google has Gemini, and Apple will soon have its own AI, probably bearing some hip name. These systems, albeit far from real intelligence (or artificial for that matter), can do wonders with optimizing and interpreting huge amounts of data.
You snap a photo, and the algorithm instantly makes it look like anything you want. The same goes for the images and videos on your screen. You can make these AI systems write mail, transcribe and translate text, shop for you, and manage the battery life on your phone.
And what are the prime things we do with our smartphones nowadays? Snap photos, browse the internet, watch videos, chat, and communicate, and create stuff or get some work done on rare occasions. AI can now do most of these, or help tremendously, and no matter what companies are trying to make you believe, most of the processing is in the cloud.
So, why pay for all that hardware R&D, manufacturing, keeping factories running, and buying raw materials to produce a phone that is basically the same as the previous one? The obvious answer is "because that's what people want, and they will buy it." I think there's a sudden and powerful change in the mindset of most people happening.
People are fed up with these incremental upgrades and want to keep their phones for longer. Google was the first company to sense this change and react by offering seven years of support for the Pixel 8 lineup. And Samsung responded accordingly. And these companies will be the first to start offering "smartphone as a service" models.
What will happen, then?
The way I see it, it's already happening. Samsung hinted that Galaxy AI will be free only until 2025, probing the ground for a paid model, and if it proves successful, expect others to follow. Don't like the photo quality on your Pixel 7 Pro? Buy the Gemini Nano Ultra subscription or upgrade, and AI algorithms will fix that.
Those $274 spread over a 12-month period equals around $23/mo. That's exactly what Netflix Premium costs in the US per month. You get the picture: companies will profit much more from selling AI subscriptions than real phones. Maybe they'll try to do both, but in the end, we might end up with just hardware terminals, called Galaxy AI, Gemini, Pixie, Siri, or whatever, and accessing powerful AI systems through these for a monthly fee.
Actually, the harbinger of AI terminals is already among us. The Rabbit R1 created ripples throughout the industry, offering a glimpse at what's to come. This might be the future of the gadget we used to know as "smartphone."
Do you think this is even remotely possible? Is the end of the smartphone as we know it nigh? I know the idea may sound very radical at first glance, but if we look with a cold, objective eye at where the world is going with the software as a service model, it suddenly starts to sound less radical. Let us know in the comment section below!
Mariyan, a tech enthusiast with a background in Nuclear Physics and Journalism, brings a unique perspective to PhoneArena. His childhood curiosity for gadgets evolved into a professional passion for technology, leading him to the role of Editor-in-Chief at PCWorld Bulgaria before joining PhoneArena. Mariyan's interests range from mainstream Android and iPhone debates to fringe technologies like graphene batteries and nanotechnology. Off-duty, he enjoys playing his electric guitar, practicing Japanese, and revisiting his love for video games and Haruki Murakami's works.
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