Went to a robotics expo in Austin yesterday and noticed half the booths were just selling the same chatbot wrapper

I was checking out this AI expo at the convention center and walked past maybe 20 booths that all had the same setup. A laptop showing a chat window and some guy in a polo shirt saying "we use GPT-4 under the hood." Like damn, is that really innovation? The only thing that stood out was this one small booth from a guy who built a system that helps factory workers spot defects on a conveyor belt using a camera and some edge AI. No chatbot, just a camera and a screen showing red boxes over bad parts. That actually felt real. Am I wrong for thinking most of this stuff is just repackaged API calls?

2 comments

2 Comments

troy99629d ago

Nailed it with that factory setup, that's the real stuff. Most of these expo booths are just selling fancy wrappers with a logo slapped on. The real innovation is in the boring stuff that actually moves product off a line.

gonzalez.anna28d ago

idk, is it really that bad if most of it is just API calls? I mean, at least these companies are actually putting chatbots out there and testing them in the real world instead of just talking about what AI could do someday. A lot of those boring wrappers are solving real problems for smaller businesses that don't have the budget or tech team to build their own models from scratch. That factory setup sounds cool and all, but it's super specific to one industry, while a chatbot wrapper can help a dentist or a plumber or a landlord automate their customer service. Maybe it's just me, but if the tool works and people use it, who cares if it's not some groundbreaking hardware project from scratch?