The New York Times (Paywall):

The concept of the A.I. software is so novel and quirky that when we — Brian X. Chen, a tech columnist who reviewed the Ray-Bans last year, and Mike Isaac, who covers Meta and wears the smart glasses to produce a cooking show — heard about it, we were dying to try it. Meta gave us early access to the update, and we took the technology for a spin over the last few weeks.

The artificial intelligence technology in Meta’s new Ray-Ban smart glasses uses cameras and image recognition to give the wearer information about what he or she is looking at. We wore the glasses to the zoo, grocery stores and a museum while grilling the A.I. with questions and requests.

The upshot: We were simultaneously entertained by the virtual assistant’s goof-ups — for example, mistaking a monkey for a giraffe — and impressed when it carried out useful tasks like determining that a pack of cookies was gluten-free.

Is this impressive tech? Absolutely. Do I see a use for it in my day to day life? Absolutely not.

I feel awkward enough asking Siri for anything, and I’ve been using her since my iPhone 4S way back in 2011.

Maybe the more digital native generations will glom onto this, and maybe future updates will make the process less awkward, but the more I see breakdowns like these, I see solutions looking for problems, rather than the other way around.

If this sort of thing is your jam, though? It’s some of the best integrated A.I. tech I’ve seen so far.