03 Aug 2025
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 Confession: Rabbit R1

 I bought a Rabbit R1 recently. My excuses? Got it cheap, 50 pounds; Bootloader
 can be unlocked so possible to flash Ubuntu Touch into it; To try out LAM
 (Large Action Model). Something like that.

 It actually arrived 3 days ago, but I only turned it on last night to apply
 updates. Coincidently, I am on business trip to another country this week. So
 I thought, well let's see how helpful it is when I am far from home.

 I quickly notice something habitual - when I don't know how to use a function,
 instinctively I open up a broswer on my phone/work laptop to start searching.
 After a few times searching by myself, I "managed" to ask the R1 to do the
 search for me. However, it doesn't always return useful information and most
 of the time what it did was to do a search on Google.

 For instance, I planned to use the global sim card that I used on my Cat B35
 on the new R1. The problem is that I need a way to set the APN, as most global
 sim require. It is not in the settings or network menu, so I asked the bunny 
 to tell me how. Despite specifically asked "how to set APN on Rabbit R1", it 
 replied with steps to setup APN on generic Android device, which is not
 applicable to itself.

 Then I asked it to "open up the APN setting page". It again took the question
 and tried to do a search on Google. This time thing didn't go as it expected -
 it told me...

     1) Searching on Google for opening up APN setting page
     2) Trying to solve Google's CAPTCHA
     3) Failed to solve the CAPTCHA, sorry
 
 What? The AI widget that promises to bring convenience to human by being able
 to order Uber, shopping on Amazon, etc. with voice command is rendered useless
 by anti-bot measures on the Internet...?

 That actually matches with how the "LAM", from my understanding, works. To let
 the AI do its thing, the user has to log into the service, say Amazon, through
 the web portal called "Rabbit Hole". There is a "cookie jar" that, now I think
 about it, literally stores the cookies to keep logged in so that it can "do
 shopping by voice command".

 I don't know but I think it is just a beautiful lie. In an ideal world it may
 work, but given how complicated a website can be I doubt it will always work
 as the user expects. To begin with, it is not even as functional as Alexa,
 which has "skills" for third party related operations. And not to mention bot
 measures that are more and more common on the Internet (and stops me from
 browsing using Lynx!).

 I am not yet at a pay grade that have secretary to help me make a bookings or
 schedule meetings, so probably hard for me to imagine how I would ask the AI
 to mark a date instead of quickly going into the calendar app myself. It may
 be useful for someone who struggles to operate a smartphone/computer, but the
 "action" part should be backed by third party developers in order to be the
 most accurate. Without this, I can hardly find a reason why I would be using
 it other than "bored".

 To me, it is in a gap between "useful" and "useless". If I ask about generic
 knowledge, like finding a recipe, it would probably be useful. If I ask it to
 write code for me, probably not so good and I can find lots of replacements.

 Is it a product that is too ahead of its time? I don't know. I have requested
 for unlocking the bootloader but before I do something irreversible, maybe I
 will try to look for more good in it.